After Christmas 2016

Sorry, I thought I had posted this. I think I was more upset than I thought!

Christmas Day was sort of okay. I wanted to spend it alone, but I had made a foam-board dollhouse room for a seven-year-old, and I wanted to be there for the opening. It was nice: choice of a wood floor or a wall-to-wall carpeted floor, a door that opened, and a window. I included some of the furniture I didn’t treasure: a basic wooden bed, a bureau, a toy chest with some toys, a red wagon, a red bicycle, and a really gaudy folding screen. A starter set, really.

I like making things for people and I like being pretty sure I am giving a present that they will like, not something I think they ought to like. I knew in advance that the payment for this moment of pleasure was sitting around and talking to the adults. I like them all individually, but as a group I found it overwhelming.

When it came time for the opening of presents, the kid was overwhelmed, too, and escaped to a nice quiet room with a television. So I snuck back home.

I had my heart set on having dim sum, and I got that wish. Like most granted wishes, it wasn’t quite perfect. The restaurant I wanted to go to was closed. The one I ended up at had only a few dim sum on the menu and so I couldn’t get anything exotic, but they were good.

All in all, it was fine. Nothing traumatic, no flashbacks, no scenes, no people being mean to each other with a smile on their face. Not nearly as nice as last year, which I spent with my good friend amid the breath-taking beauty of red rocks in Utah. But boy, would I have been thrilled to have had such a pleasant Christmas when I was a child.

The next few days were like normal days; the gym, the pool, tons of email, a nice big Dungeness crab, a little house work. My car amused itself by throwing a fit. All the alarm lights came on at once but it cleared up the moment the car got to the garage. It wouldn’t misbehave for the mechanics and the diagnostics didn’t show anything. I figure it’s either the electrical system or the computer in the car, and either one will be expensive down the road. They assured me it’s safe to drive, but I am a little nervous.

Now New Year’s Eve is coming up. I feel somewhat apprehensive, and I think that is a flashback to a flashback. The original event was icky things that happened on New Year’s Eve. A big cocktail party that lasted until midnight and then, after the last Old Lang Syne was sung, off to a ritual. For years, the flashbacks consisted of a vague feeling that things were not all right.

Then, in 1999, I was filled with terror. I was sure that Satanists around the world would wreck havoc in any and every way they could think of. Bombs, large bombs. Poisoning the water supplies. Messing up the Internet and computer systems so that the electricity, banks, and phones were knocked out. Assassinations. And many more things I could not even imagine.

My therapist reminded me that I had lived through flashbacks before but I could not believe that this was only a flashback. I was convinced that it was a rational fear, given what I knew.

So I went to a big chain liquor store and bought two expensive jars of caviar. One was for New Year’s Eve, which I spend safely at home alone. If I was killed during the night, I wouldn’t be there to mind spending the extra money. And if I lived, I would have it for breakfast. Best breakfast I have ever had.

I bet some of you can relate. And I bet everybody remembers that nothing out of the ordinary happened. Guess they aren’t as powerful as they led me to believe!!!!!!