Fall is here, the clues are everywhere... the smell of natural gas as I walk into my heated apartment, the leaves in their spiral path from tree to ground, the chilled way I grip my jacket to my body (cognizant that it isn't nearly bulky enough to keep me warm).

As the temperatures dip lower and lower at night, the promise of snow soon to come is on the air. With that, the realization of the seasons as they relate to my relationship. This is the first time in two years that I'll have these cooler seasons on my own. I won't be able to pounce Bear at eight in the morning to tell him that the first snowfall is beginning. I won't be able to go holiday shopping with him alone at ten at night, only to come home and stay up until two in the morning to wrap Christmas presents while Dean Martin sings drunken carols. I won't be able to wake up next to him early Christmas morning to watch my daughter excitedly open her presents.

There's no positive here, no spin I can put on that to make it feel any better or hurt any less. I'm alone again for the holidays, and I'd prefer not to be. He'll be around, probably, unless he decides to go to San Diego for Thanksgiving or Japan for Christmas. He sees the holidays as far less important than I do, and I guess I just have to get used to that.

The holidays are extremely important to me, and not for any religious meaning. Holidays to me mean warmth, security, safety, love. They allow me to reconnect with the important people in my life and share of myself - emotionally and financially. Spending time with the people I love... that's what the holidays are to me. I guess he sees them as something of a bother; his life wasn't exactly full of warm and fuzzy family moments. I just wish we could strike some sort of a compromise that doesn't make the other one feel like we're being left out in the cold or forced to do something we don't want to do.

This entry was posted by Mellie, on Saturday, October 08, 2005.