Early Christmas morning: between four and five a.m., briefly awake.
At the back of my mind for the past few days: the differences between holidays with family and friends, as opposed to alone, especially among the single and the older (like me of course). Alfred visited for two days, to the 23rd; he is a bit older than I am, and fairly famous, fairly well-connected. But because he broke up last spring with a partner after an all-too-brief period, he is roaming alone, searching for some place he can start again – and experiencing the bad timing of an economic downturn. He is handling it well, and is now off visiting another friend over the crucial days; but he also seems a bit at a loss, and feeling the isolation, the uncertainty (and yes, I'm undoubtedly projecting); and perhaps he is hearing in his head the silly, irrational questions that become so familiar for anyone who lives alone, such as the ones that start, Does anyone care what happens to... ?....
He told me news of Tom Disch – I hadn't known Disch committed suicide last July, after his partner died and his landlord started to evict him. Disch, who was a brilliant writer – especially when he wrote 334 – became increasingly bitter in his later years, as shown by his books from The Businessman onward, and his blog; he finally felt there was just no place for him, no alternatives and no places to go.
Then there's Geoff, on the other side of the world, leaving a slightly sad status update about having no presents. Other Facebook messages indicate that people are either with loved ones, or without; and that there is a certain avoided contrast between those classes. And, perhaps, most of all, there is my mother who, at eighty-six, won't get any visits until the day after Christmas; I tried repeatedly to call on Christmas Eve, but got no answer, as happens rather often. (And yes, you're quite right, I do feel guilty: in general that I am so far away.)
I, of course, am accustomed to all this for myself, but I do always need to manage my rather high expectations, which come from an exaggeratedly sentimental attachment to the holidays. It wasn't a bad Christmas Eve: a large lunch at the nearby Italian restaurant, where I was the only person alone.
And I'll also admit to a slightly willful avoidance of people connecting with me: I realized, today, over that lunch, that I don't want to ask people to spend time with me over the holidays – because, frankly, it's embarrassing. Somehow one wants them to want to spend time with you, to burst in, perhaps even with presents... ludicrous, I know.
I'm not sad, though. Except, perhaps, for mom; and then only in a general context of wondering why we have created this cultural/economic pattern that leaves people living alone, in apartments, in small houses, in rooms – especially on this day, of all the year....
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