Posted On December 1, 2014 By In Girlzone, Lifestyle

Home for The Holidays: What We Forget

 
 

Post-friendsgiving and pre-ginger-ale ordering at a bar because the fear of vomiting after the many mixes and matches of food and drinks was real, a friend inquired about my plans to go home for both holidays.

“You’re going home for Thanksgiving and Christmas?” He asked, surprised at the repeated venture, requiring an airline flight or ten hour car ride a matter of weeks away from one another. I gushed to him about how significant the holidays were to me, my brother was extremely sick a couple years ago and the morbid fear of those holidays being the last we would all spend together had made it a priority for me to be with my four siblings and parents on the holidays. Even though he is well and healthy now. Even though it is a slight journey.  Even though 98% of the time my family is with each other we are fighting.  It is the most wonderful time of the year, after all!

After returning from Thanksgiving this year, I realized that there are some things we forget until we are trapped in our childhood bedrooms, surrounded by Justin Timberlake posters for four nights.

  • Meeting your sister’s thirty-six year-old boyfriend who is thirteen years her junior might make you feel uncomfortable when he talks about his “Travels from May 2000” because your travels from May 2000 include walking across the stage for your 6th grade graduation in your training bra.
  • Flights that leave at seven in the morning are never pleasant. Despite how you get to the airport, despite who is in your bed and tangled in your sheets when you leave, despite if the flight is on time, despite how early you went to bed and what snacks you have in your purse. After you land, you’re in a “First-Day-Home-Best-Behavior- Expectation” that is hard to maintain when sleep deprived.
  • Fathers fart. A lot. This is something you remember while you’re driving to dinner and he rolls down his window seven times during a seven minute drive in an attempt to expunge his flatulence from the vehicle.
  • It is easy to revert back to your moody thirteen your old self when your siblings complain about forced together time hikes that you planned and you throw the car keys at them in a rage.
  • Bathroom etiquette doesn’t exist. That lock on the bathroom door that you can open with your fingernail will be opened. Your poops will be interrupted with a bang on the door of someone who “just needs to grab something” and you can forget about trying to shave your vagina without someone yelling about brushing their teeth.
  • You will need to drink, a lot. Any bash at your love life, work life, home life, the company you work for, the amount of rent you pay and the children you don’t have nor want, will inspire you to open a new “just in case” bottle of wine three nights in a row.
  • You will need to drink, a lot. Any bash at your love life, work life, home life, the company you work for, the amount of rent you pay and the children you don’t have nor want, will inspire you to open a new “just in case” bottle of wine three nights in a row.
  • You don’t fit in a twin size bed. Not even close, and your feet hang low and the headboard wobbles to and fro every time you roll over and tuck your fucking floral flower in-between your knees.
  • Even though you haven’t lived at home for eight years, your parents still think you’re incapable of doing anything alone. This includes, but is not limited to: putting on the emergency break in the car, navigating downtown, or washing your underwear.
  • Your freshman aged cousin will remind you that your expensive, five–year education may have been a waste of time and money when she tell you about her anatomy class. And what she is studying. And asks you what your major was (English) and where you work now (a tech company) and what that has to do with your major (nothing).
  • Twelve hour car rides on a two lane highway back to San Francisco will ensure that you never drive home for Thanksgiving again.

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Equally lovely and ferocious in nature, Allyson Darling resides in San Francisco. She writes nonfiction essays about sex, relationships, and pantries (and sometimes about having sex in pantries).