Browsing Tag

holiday depression

Hipstercrite Life

Holiday Depression on Holidays I Confuse for Memorial Day

family2

Yesterday I was in a funk and I couldn’t figure out why.
Then it dawned on me: It’s a holiday!
Even though Labor Day is one of those holidays that, sadly, had little impact on me growing up other than it meant a day off from school, it still sent me into an aimless walkabout the house, thinking about things I strategically avoid thinking about.

The older I get the more holidays bum me out.

Maybe if I had children I would feel differently?

Maybe if my partner believed in holidays they would be much more fun?

I spent most of the day wistfully thinking back to when I was a child, which lead me to thinking about where all the time has gone, which lead me to thinking about all those who came before us whose memories have faded away, which lead me to thinking about the long stretches of time that goes in between seeing my family, which lead me to thinking about the wrinkles and age spots I see on my parent’s skin, which lead me to thinking about my own gray hairs and spiderweb (more…)

Hipstercrite Life

Childhood Christmas vs. Adulthood Christmas

Bah!

This will be my third- THIRD!– year in a row that I’m unable to travel home for the holidays.

Since I no longer work a 9-5 job with set time off (though my last 9-5 only gave me Christmas day off- yes, they were conservative Republicans), money and time make it difficult for me to travel home to New York. Neither Austin, Texas or Syracuse, New York, the cities I fly out of and into have large airports, so the cost to travel between the two can get mighty expensive. Sprinkle in the fact that me and my family (my mother and grandmother) are a bunch of neurotic weirdos (I have a fear of flying, they have a fear of driving 45 minutes away in the snow to pick me up from the airport) and the whole experience becomes more stressful than it needs to be.

None of this takes away from the harrowing guilt (we’re Jews that celebrate Christmas) I feel associated with not going home for the holidays. However, home for the holidays has taken on a different meaning these days. Going back (more…)