A Filled Stocking

I wrote this on 9/27/23 in a Future Me letter to be emailed to me the day after Christmas 12/26/23: It's the day after Christmas. Are you still with him? More in love? Did you get that moment of being cuddled in front of the Christmas tree, snow falling, and happy? It hasn't even been 2 weeks. This is ridiculous. Yet it feels so good. So right. Or do I just want this so much? I think he's in a similar position as me; wanting love so much and willing to do anything to get it. Yet even outside our desperateness, we fit. I hope this is love. You deserve it so much. I hope you are waking to this full of cookies and smiling. I hope it was the best Christmas of your life. If not....you're used to it.

It was coming up on 3 months of being in a relationship with him. He said he loved me in days, relationship status changed on social media in less than a week, Google calendar together to share our every move, and talk of marriage and forever. As Christmas was coming up he said, "just so you know you won't be getting a ring...but I would marry you." I had no expectations of a ring and didn't understand why this disclaimer needed to be said at all. I smiled and nodded while trying to internally decipher why he'd need to say that. Instead of giving me some sort of assurance of his love and devotion to me, it felt like a way to make me on unsure, and it worked. 

Christmas has always been a sad time for me where I looked at it with both hope and dread. One of my earliest memories is sitting in the dark in front of the Christmas tree crying as I heard my parents fighting about my mother spending too much money on one of my presents. I took it personally feeling that my father didn't think I was worth enough for the extra five dollars she spent. Christmas when I was married, and the only time in my life having a partner, was an anxiety filled nightmare. My husband was someone who was always angry and I codependently was on edge to manage his anger, make sure he didn't cause a scene, while still making sure my son had a happy Christmas. It wasn't fun. We'd be driving to one of the many Christmas family events we needed to go to, as I tried to regulate my breath and pop an anti anxiety pill if I could get one. He would know all the reasons it stressed me out and say loudly so our son could hear, "Why are you acting this way? What's wrong with you?" Male anger scares me, and I didn't want my son to remember his childhood with fighting, so I'd smile and shove all my feelings down to appease him. 

The part I dreaded most was looking in our stockings. I made sure my son and husband had presents and treats in their stocking to find that every year, for 24 years, I had nothing. He would look in his stocking and see me fighting tears holding my empty one and say, "oh...sorry", and then I would shove a cookie, or 10, in my mouth and try to act like I wasn't dying inside. The stocking was never just a stocking. It was the symbol of the little girl in me who wanted one Christmas where I was cared for and not forgotten.

I had built this Christmas up to finally have everything I'd longed for my entire life and I was hell bent on making it perfect. It had been just a month before where we'd had a fight that left me confused with glaring red flags all over that I once again shoved down as I wanted the holidays with another person so desperately. I'd come back from a work trip, happy reunion at the airport, as we got back to his place I was smiling and pouring a wine and he came up behind me and aggressively said, "You're acting off. What's going on?". I turned around confused and said, "What? I'm fine.". He comes back again, accusatory and harder this time, "No, you're off. What's going on?". Now I'm scared and I'm not sure why. I felt completely fine and didn't see anything different in my behavior. And the "off" felt like I was being blamed for something yet I didn't know what. I became flustered and tried to figure out what I might be doing to deserve this statement, and said, "I'm tired. I guess I'm just tired.". He said, "Oh you're tired...so you lied to me. You said you were fine but you're not fine, you're tired. You lied.". My brain scrambled as this was completely inane, yet it was the week before Thanksgiving, him and his daughter were coming to my family's, I'd finally have a parter with me and not be the one sitting alone, and I wanted it all so much. I plead my case that a person can be both fine and tired, and I certainly wasn't lying. This lead to more fighting, and him saying he can't be in a relationship with a liar, even something as small as saying they are fine when they are tired. This fizzled out, Thanksgiving was nice, and I had someone by my side and didn't want that feeling to end. 

Future Me letter December 3, 2023
We had a fight this morning and I'm still reeling from it. He escalated quickly and I couldn't understand why. I felt like I was being accused, and then when I reacted, he implied my reaction was sketchy. Fully gaslit me and I'm seeing I am trying to make it OK, or believe he didn't realize it. But he said flat out "you are a red flag, there are question marks with you..." then went into my social media being public, and how he doesn't know who I'm reacting with. And when I tried to show full transparency to him he got angry at that too. Yelled. Each time I tried to reply he "didn't understand my reaction" or words. I felt like I couldn't speak. I find myself dreaming about marrying him and I think it's because then I'd feel he's locked in and won't leave me. I realized I was feeling triggered that I'd be left. I shared this and he said I didn't trust him. I don't fully trust his reactions. I feel like he'll say the "energy is off" or I'll say one wrong word and he'll end it. He's says he's all in, not leaving but then I feel like he says these things purposefully to throw me off. I feel like he wants me insecure.

The tree was up, presents were bought and wrapped, and now everything feels volatile, yet I wanted my special Christmas so much. I wanted those happy holidays pictures. I didn't want another year of sitting alone Christmas day, crying, wondering why I couldn't have what it appeared everyone around me had. The intermittent reinforcement had begun, and we were back to acting like all things were well, though I felt he'd already pulled away and I started walking oh so delicately on eggshells. He was unstable while giving an air of being zen and above everyone else, manipulative, sexualizing conversations with graphic tales of his past that I didn't ask for, fixated on exes, financially shaky, and unpredictable. But how do I call it out, or leave, when I'm so close to getting what I always wanted? I stayed silent.

It was Christmas Eve morning and the plan was to go to my mother's for brunch. I would be meeting my nephew that my brother and brother in law had adopted for the first time, he was bringing his daughter, and I would finally have my happy Christmas with someone. I first got a text that my brother in law had covid so Christmas was off. Though deeply disappointed, I still had that night where my son would come to his place and we were going to pretend to be a family. Minutes later my other brother texts that his former father in law was dying and he was bringing his children to the hospital to see him. I got out of bed, frazzled, and got up to make coffee and to wake up and take in what was happening. As I went downstairs I walked past his daughter's room and frantically said all that was going on. As I poured my coffee he came up behind me, feeling eerily similar to when I'd been told I was "off", and said, "my daughter said you were laughing about someone dying". I turned around shocked and said, "What?! No, of course not. I told her what was happening. Wow...I love this man, he is truly one of the best people I've ever known, and I'd never laugh at anyone dying.". He said, "Good. Because if you had I'd kick you out onto the street right now." I froze. Why? Why was that being said to me? His face was cold and glaring and I turned away, because I was so close to making my Christmas fantasy come true, and I couldn't handle it being destroyed before my eyes, even if it meant sticking up for myself. 

We had our pseudo family Christmas where everyone got gifts, we laughed, and I had something in my stocking, with even a stocking for my son. I went to bed smiling and wiping away tears of joy, even though he'd stopped holding me at night. Asking for what I needed always brought about male anger, one of my worst fears, so I took any scrap I could get, as I figured something was better than the nothing I'd always had. I finally got my filled stocking.