For some, the holiday season is a depressing time.
I sit by the cold hearth where the reunion is to take place in a week, lost in memories of my youth. Possibly it’s a trick of memory, but those seemed like more cheerful times, easier ones. Before the depression started. It seems to me now to be a time that was carefree.
I thought that things would be rosy like that forever. No conflicts, no responsibilities. I remember specifically thinking that I was an extremely chipper, affable person…I said that to myself: “I’m nearly always happy.” And I assumed that would be my status quo as an adult as well.
Delusions. None of that was to be seen into my grown-up life.
And then there was that Christmas. That argument just before leaving for my senior year of college.
The day the fantasies were shattered and I chipped my tooth on the family fruitcake. It was a slice of reality that I still cannot swallow.
That damned fruitcake.
Damned reality. Life’s better without it.