Where Is It?

By the time I was twenty-four, I had spent half my life in California, and the other half in New York. The stints in each were not contiguous, I was back and forth a lot. My grandfather, who I lived with, passed away that year and friends encouraged me to move back to Southern California. I was recruited by an ad agency to serve as creative director, and given their accounts included Budget Rent-a-Car and TaylorMade Golf, I jumped at the opportunity.

I moved in with a friend from back home who lived in San Clemente, and settled into the new job. My first Christmas back in California was depressing. While I was happy to be able to spend time with my mom, I missed the rest of my extended family in WNY. Plus, the weather was typical for that area in the winter. Cold, but not that cold, gloomy without the benefit of sunshine or snow on the ground to make it at least feel like Christmas.

I was lost, displaced. I was having trouble figuring out my life and what I saw for my future. I struggled in that limbo for seven years. I wasn't marking the time then, but when I look back at it, that's how long it was. 

Then I went to freelance for a place called Priscomm and met people who are friends for life . . . and my husband. It wasn't that I didn't have friends before that, it just was that life didn't seem to be moving forward, or backward . . . it just was.

I remember the first year Doug and I were together and went to the tree lot in San Clemente and got a tree for my place in Dana Point. And the two of us decorating it together. I had a Christmas party that year . . . I remember feeling as though life was making sense again. He and I went to Santa Fe for Christmas, and while it wasn't home, it was different enough, and festive enough, and cold enough, to feel like Christmas. He went to church with me Christmas morning at a beautiful chapel right across the street from the inn we stayed in. I remember it feeling like Christmas, for the first time in a long time.

Eventually I moved up to Costa Mesa, with Doug, he proposed, we got married and I got pregnant. A new batch of friends came with the new baby, women from a moms' club I joined. Again, I met friends who will remain so for life.

In the seven years before I met Doug, I struggled each year with finding my Christmas spirit. I spent the holidays with my mom, and her neighbors, who weren't my family, or even people I remember that much about. It never felt like Christmas to me. We didn't go to church, we didn't celebrate the traditions our family had all of my life. It just was.

Twenty-plus years later, we live in Colorado. More friends of life-long variety have come into our lives, and the feeling of Christmas surrounds us. But, I'm struggling and I don't know why. Maybe I do this every year, and I just don't remember I do it. Christmas is nine days away and I feel as though it could be nine months away. I cannot believe we'll start celebrating my birthday, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day next week.

I miss my grandparents. I miss home. I miss the traditions of my childhood . . . on the other hand, maybe I'm just tired. I've been burning the candle at both ends this week, and desperately need some down time. Doug, bless his heart, is pushing me in that direction, because he knows it's what I need. We're skiing Friday at Copper Mountain and I'm sure by the time we hit the slopes, I'll have moved out of my pre-holiday funk.