Christmas is a time of year that is supposed to be fun and full of good cheer. But it is cold, bleak, full of petty narcissists mithering over all the things are going wrong in your life. Even worse when, like me, you spend most of your life going by a different name to the one your family insist on calling you.
But my problems are just... paltry, it feels like.
People are on the street. Out in the cold and the dark of the streets. In shelters without family or friends. Or stranded in loveless houses they can no longer call homes out of fear or regret or anger. And here I am with these little problems. Little. And I can do nothing, right now, to try and aid in some way, some small way, those with a worse situation than me because I'm not financially stable enough. Neither can I volunteer as the main charities that operate this time of year are genuinely awful when it comes to LGBTQ folk and it would be obscene to me if I were to work with them.
So this is what life becomes when it hits this last week, leading up to Christmas day. I tend to go quiet. Stay out of the way. Try and store up the required amount of energy, of spoons, spell slots, however best you want to look at the theory of how much we expend on other people and other things throughout our day. And come the day I become a passenger. I sit. I smile. I make small talk. I drink and try to ignore the wrong name that I'm expected to responded to, pouring like sewage out of so many mouths...
And then I'll find a convenient time to excuse myself and disappear back to my sanctum. I can go back to the people I know, most of which live so far away from me, but who know me. They call me the name I use. They treat me with love, respect, joke with me, play games with me and above all else, they know me. I cannot honestly put into words just how thankful I am for all the friends I have made through things like Discord and who are so damn good to have in my life.
Not the most cheery holiday message... but there it is.
Best wishes to you and yours who read this. And have yourselves a good Christmas.
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