The gift of rejection
A new take on Christmas
Every year, around Christmas time, I experience the same awkward feeling when I receive a festive greetings card from a usually distant family member.
Two contrasting feelings, in fact.
The first one is innocent joy, when I open the envelope and recognise the signature at the bottom of the card. I feel moved. It’s usually someone I’ve tried to develop a genuine bond or relationship with for a while. Someone I used to love… or tried hard to like (even if they’ve never showed any real interest or kindness), simply because they’re my relative and that’s what you do. “One day, they’ll like me too.”
As I read on through their – empty or vaguely cheerful – words, my heart melts as I fondly reminisce about the rare occasions where I didn’t feel misunderstood or judged by them; when I was four or five, maybe. That initial feeling of joy is still there, but its already partly overcast by familiar caution. After all, the last time I’ve heard from them was… two Christmas ago.
Still, I even go as far as considering to call them straight away to tell them how much I’ve missed them; how I wish life weren’t so hard on us sometimes. If life were softer, surely, we’d have time to care more about each other, etc. The people-pleaser in me is ready to make excuses for their silence. Of course, if my personal and repeated attempts to maintain a connection outside of Christmas or New Year have failed miserably, it must be life’s fault.
Parts of me feel genuinely compelled to write them a song or a poem to tell them how much I love them. I am an optimist, you see. It’s not spontaneous (I’ve worked on it) but I’m usually leaning towards the side of love because it feels good. If feels right.
Yet, as I read the card again, slower this time, I start noticing the red flags. They’re asking me whether I’m still living here or there, traveling to this or that place. That’s strange. If they were really concerned for or interested in me, why would they wait for Christmas to ask me those pretty basic questions?
And while mustering a phone call maybe too much for them – I’ve called them a few times in the past, when I was hoping to establish some sort of relational continuum – why didn’t they send me a text or a short email since to ask me how I am?
That last question leads to the second and rather unpleasant feeling. Wait… What if they don’t actually care? What if they just write to me because it’s Christmas and they want to clear their conscience, so they don’t have to think about all the times where I’ve made contact and they didn’t reply?
While that situation is familiar (it happens nearly every year, same or different family member) I still feel utterly confused. I read through the card again and again, looking for what’s missing, for what’s not being said – “What are you doing for Christmas, sweetie? Do you want to join us for dinner? Hop on a flight, we’re waiting for you!” But those words aren’t there. They never are.
And if an invite to visit the rest of the year is sometimes thrown at me like a bone to a hungry dog or a barge pole to a drowning swimmer, it’s never, ever followed by an offer to visit me in return. No one ever comes around.
Confusion and remnants of joy abruptly dissipate, replaced by raging anger.
That isn’t a card that says “I love you and I want to see more of you”. No. Instead, it says: “Forgive me for forsaking you. I’m going to keep doing it next year too because that’s all I can do. I do care, but I don’t care enough to want to see more of you or be with you. I hope you have friends that take care of you the way I never will. I wish you the best for I know you deserve it.”
Thankfully, I do have friends who take care of me, even when they are away. I’m blessed to have such gems in my life: loved ones who came and stayed. They don’t just show up at Christmas or whenever else they think it’s in order. And while I am deeply grateful for their kindness and the love they bestow onto me, I may also have my split family to thank for those precious relationships.
I may never have sought and valued such close friendships if I didn’t lose my mum at an early age, if I had known my dad, if my grandfather and godmother who were loving care takers hadn’t also passed away, and if all that’s left of what I used to call my “family” in the world of the livings weren’t people who seemingly can’t love themselves enough to show me any love at all.
Through thick and thin my friends have stood by me, even when I was so out of my head that I could no longer see the till while working late hours behind dodgy nightclubs’ bars. They were around when I was rocking back and forth, after having had too much of everything I knew would make me sick out of my stomach, but still took because it would take away the less familiar pain: the pain of not knowing myself, of not knowing who I was.
My true family was there, all along. They didn’t judge me like most of my family members did and still do. They listened, they offered presence. They deeply cared and, sometimes, they did send a Christmas card, too.
From being ostracised and bullied by siblings in my childhood, to ignored and kept away from family celebrations and Christmas dinners in adulthood, I’ve grown acutely aware of the importance loyalty: the hurt we cause when we betray or deceive a loved one, deny them access to our once widely open heart and arms.
I’ve learnt that when I only remember the people I love at times where society tells me I’m supposed to do so, whether it’s Christmas or a birthday, I’m doing myself disservice by not granting me the joy and happiness a fuller and closer relationship would bring, if only I would allow it into my life.
I’ve learnt that there can be no such thing as timely love or love-by-proxy. Love is there or it isn’t. Sending a postcard or a Facebook message just once a year only reveals my incapacity to form and maintain healthy bonds, including with self if I can’t find the courage to admit, at least to myself, that I don’t really care, that I’m just pretending. Will that meaningless gesture make feel better? Life – “Love In Full Expression” - taught me it won’t.
To the contrary of those who’ve been ignoring me all those years, I’ve practiced taking a good look at myself in the mirror and say: “I love you, you know. It’s okay to show others that you love them. They’re not going to hurt you.” It’s a beautiful thing to re-parent ourselves; whether parents have passed away or were once emotionally absent.
There is relief in knowing that we can show up and stand up for ourselves: that we can use the healing we’ve worked so hard for not to react to what used to trigger us badly. I don’t have to steer away from self-love anymore, like I used to when I thought my relatives’ absence or indifference was merely a reflection of my inherent unworthiness.
Thanks to them, I got to know myself and now, I know better.
So, this year, I’m not going to throw the Christmas card in the air and shout: “These people will never learn. I dare them to connect just once a year, why do they f…. bother?!”. And I won’t try to reply, hoping they’ll understand, make amend and send me a Christmas dinner invite next year.
This year, I will be quiet.
On Christmas eve, I’ll be going for a meal with a dear friend. The following day, I will try to remember the true meaning of Christmas: an event many people turn into a weird consumption marathon, filled with drunken stupor, broken families’ pretence and deceived expectations.
I had previewed my Christmas dinner as a delicious meal eaten in the company of me, myself and I, and the three of us were going to have a ball. Well, that was the initial plan but in the end a friend decided to join me for lunch. The more the merrier.
Tonight, however, I will raise of non-alcoholic toast to another dear friend who years after years has taken me under her wing for Christmas and made sure I knew her family was mine too. I won’t be proudly wearing my paper crown in the comfort of their home this year because they’re taking a break from hosting. Good on them.
I will light up some candles, find a comfortable cushion and sit in silence. I’ll connect with that part of myself that no longer gets upset because some people choose love, others stay in fear and some, against all odd, do enjoy a shopping day at the mall. I will try to accept differences and blissfully welcome that new found peace if I can.
I will revel in the comfort of my own soul. I will be in-joy-in myself, as Eckhart Tolle suggested in the Power Of Now, a book I could probably read three more times and still not fully understand. I will be gentle to myself. I will be grateful for close friends, deep rest, nurtured contentment and sustained progress.
If that wasn’t enough, I will have a couple of plant-based desserts and watch that film again I’ve just bought as a DVD: “Mar Adentro” (The Sea Inside).
Forgiving to me is like a muscle. The more I practice, the easier it gets to exercise my right for serenity, which cannot be diminished by others’ madness or inconsistencies. I won’t be keeping that Christmas card in a drawer either, plotting my revenge and entertaining the need for some ‘well-deserved’ answer. (In the past I’d be reading the card over and over, so as to intensify the blame game I once knew how to play so well).
This year, I’ll simply put the card in the recycling bin and go about my day. I’ll let the brushstroke of the past land on an old canvas no longer on display. I’ll elevate myself like the master piece that I am, that we all are; even - especially - if no one else validates my uniqueness by their arbitrary standards.
It will be the best Christmas ever and I bet next year will feel even better.
After all, wasn’t there a great teacher allegedly born on that day who died in the name of love? The myth of his death is worth revisiting. The question isn’t about who he actually was, or what he did or didn’t do afterwards, but what he was trying to convey by sacrificing his freedom and ultimately his life for the good and sake of others. Whatever his reason, it must have been important. It must have been worth it.
Maybe, if those of us who struggle with or recover from co-dependency were entirely convinced that we are important and worthy of unconditional love, or anything else we seek or deeply feel we deserve, we wouldn’t feel let down when others turn their back on us because they can’t see their own worth.
Can I blame my relatives for not knowing what I shall know too well, yet still fail to practice sometimes? Can we expect others to do for us what we know we should be doing for ourselves all along? And am I able to admit that it’s my own lack of self-love which, in the past, has led me to internalise and identified with the indifference and scorn I used to think my so-called family directed at me? Yes, I can. Moving on.
That isn’t to say that many of us haven’t been mistreated, dismissed, not cared for, betrayed, abandoned, rejected… I see you, and, I dare saying: such is the gift that will stay with us way beyond Christmas and any birthday. The gift that has given us our true power: the ability to love and to forgive ourselves.
♥️😘