Back in June when I was migrating from “She’s Got Baggage” over to this fine establishment, I wrote a post about how I got the baggage theme going in the first place – namely, about how a certain guy I dated said I had too much baggage and so on.

He was referring to my ex-fiance and Suicidal Rebound Ex.That all happened in 2003. I told him that if he didn’t want baggage he ought to date high-school girls. He was 29 at the time.

I knew through the grapevine that this particular guy got married over the summer. I’ve never met his wife, but I’ve heard she’s lovely, and he absolutely deserves that. And I recently found out that she already had a four year old kid when they met.

HAH!

I think this is great. Love conquers baggage. There is hope for everyone.

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I’m trying some stuff with Feedburner today. If you’re reading this from a blog reader and it showed up as a partial feed, please comment and let me know! The goal is to get rid of that. And if it showed up as a full feed in your reader, please let me know that too. Please include the type of reader you’re using.

Thanks and love!

Ah, Boxing Day.

I stole it from the British.

This might be my favorite holiday.

I’m sitting at my computer in my cozy new L.L. Bean cable-knit sweater, checking out digital camera reviews so I can spend my Christmas money on something fabulous. My cat is playing with crumpled wrapping paper. I hung my new ornament on my little tree. I have leftover pie and Christmas lasagna in the fridge.

I am alone and I have absolutely nowhere I have to go today.

It’s great.

I always feel a little relieved when Christmas is over. No more people giving me presents in the office and me being embarrassed because I didn’t get them anything. No more pressure to run, run, run to every store to find something perfect for everyone. No more constantly checking the bank account. No more articles about the political incorrectness of nativity scenes. No more family drama (not my family, E’s, but mine by extension) about who is going where for Christmas.

This year I was determined to go into the holiday season with no expectations. I decided I wouldn’t force myself to be merry. I wouldn’t stress over holiday parties and baking cookies for everyone in the office. I would enjoy the festivities and shun the stress from within.

I went AWOL for most of the month of December, not really blogging, not even really reading blogs that much (sorry) but really just spending a little more time with myself and focusing on staying calm. Christmas, oddly enough, sets off my depression AND my anxiety issues. I think I let those get the best of me last year, and I was a total Grinch. Looking back on last year’s Christmas Day post and the later one about Christmas presents,* I can tell I was pretty unhappy. Pressured.

All right – I was straight up whackjobby. And for what? I just re-read those posts and the Crazy Alert flashed Code Red.

So this year, in the traditional season of giving and selflessness, I got selfish with my time and my space because frankly, I think it’s what I needed.

It worked. And I had a good Christmas this year.

I wasn’t mean or anything. I just told myself that it was okay to not be a merry little elf every day, and to take those days one at a time, starting afresh each morning. Maybe I lowered the bar for myself, but I did it with my mental health in mind and I think that’s a fine enough reason.

Today I wish you a merry Boxing Day, because today I am celebrating the fact that I made it through.

And anyone who was afraid of having a lousy Christmas season – because of family issues, because of a memory or a loss, because of ANYTHING – guess what? YOU made it too! You are alive. You are present. And it’s a new day.

So open a box of something for Boxing Day and take some time, even if it’s only five minutes while you hide in a locked bathroom to get away from your nuts family, and congratulate yourself. You deserve it.

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* I re-covered the rocking chair that set off this rant, and it now resides happily in my new living room where I do have enough space for it. What a difference a year and three yards of fabric can make!

“Honey? Where’s the other present your mom sent me? You said there were two.”

“Yours are the ones with the red ribbons.”

I dig in the box. I opened one gift yesterday, so there should be another red ribbon somewhere. Instead, I find an unwrapped set of very cute pajamas.

“Did you open my present?”

“No, why?”

“Cause I don’t think these size small PJs are for you, and they’re opened right here by your t-shirts.”

“I didn’t open anything of mine. What t-shirts?”

I hold up the Life is Good shirts with a cyclist and a football player. E grabs his hair and curses under his breath and I know who did it. It’s the person whose presents aren’t even in that box.

It’s been a stressful two weeks dealing with my boyfriend’s older brother. Bro moved into E’s place this summer after he couldn’t pay his bills anymore. He was fired because he refused to conform to a simple rule, but he wouldn’t let The Man tell him what to do. Nor would he sign up for unemployment, because that’s for losers. Noble. So he took over half of E’s one-bedroom apartment and has been living on a waiter’s tips and a sense of entitlement.

He doesn’t even try.

It’s only gotten worse since he moved in, and these last few weeks we have been DESPERATE to get him out. But it’s a double-edged sword because E is thoroughly convinced that Bro is just going to make a financial mess of himself again and land on the doorstep some night, drunk and stoned, demanding to move back in. And E, with a deep resentment barely overridden by his sense of fraternal obligation, will let him. And they both know it.

But Bro has finally found an apartment and put down a deposit. He’s got the keys. I very kindly (read: pushily) provided him with a dozen of the sturdy boxes we use at The Hospital and told him that if he needed more, I’d hook him up. He packed five of them and has moved exactly one.

In the spirit of Christmas and the love I bear for my boyfriend, GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT.

Quit slacking and mooching off him. Don’t whine to us about how poor you are when we know you blow all your money on your vices, legal and otherwise. Quit leaving a mess everywhere. Open your own damn Christmas presents. Don’t eat the food we bought for ourselves. Stop turning the furnace up to 75 and not contributing to the gas bill. Quit waking us up in the morning because you want to talk about nothing. On that note, quit keeping us up at night because you’re drunk and want to talk and sing Miley Cyrus songs.

E and I sleep at my place a lot now because he just can’t stand being at his own apartment anymore. I love having him over, but that’s just stupid and wrong to feel pushed out of your own place like that. He is so stressed and angry and it hurts my heart to see him like this. It’s not that E hasn’t tried, both nicely and occasionally in anger, to wake Bro up to what he’s doing. But it’s all a joke to him. E wouldn’t REALLY throw him out, right? Ha ha ha!

We are ready to cut him.

My badly sprained left thumb (volleyball, yet again) has made typing pretty painful last few weeks – the brace doesn’t help. Typos abound; this is pretty much the millionth draft of this post. But from here at the Rams game, at halftime, I feel like there is something I MUST say:

E, if you ever propose to me, in a stadium, under any circumstances, I will say no.

Men of the world, take note.

(But I very badly want to be on a Kiss Cam. Just once. Are those things mutually exclusive? Just wondering.)

I used to get the worst migraines AFTER finals in college. When all academics were said and one for the term, I’d come home and spend 24-36 hours pretty much dead in bed, whimpering in pain. Never before, when I was nervous and cramming facts into my head. Never during, where I was sweating and trying desperately to recall something, ANYTHING that might be right. Nope. Always AFTER the worst was over, it would hit me.

I finished NaNoWriMo at 1:12 am CST on Sunday, November 29th. Didn’t sleep till four, I was so excited. And in the morning, when all the drama  of the deadline was over, the nerve attack hit.

It suddenly occurred to me that I’d been off work for five days. What had I forgotten to do? What was coming up Monday? Did I have meetings? Deadlines? Had I remembered to put everything on my to-do list?

I started to feel a bit psycho.

Then I started thinking about my manuscript. Was it even any good? How much did I really like? If I lop out the crap – oh geeze, only 34,000 good words? What if I never finish it? What if I finish it and it sucks – AND what if I finish it and it sucks and I send it to a publisher and they send it back with a “yeah, right” note on a used cocktail napkin?

PANIC. PANIC. PANIC. PANIC.

E was off work on Sunday so I sought comfort with him. But everything he tried to do to relax me just made me more uptight. Footrub suddenly hurt. Back scratching suddenly stung. Head rub made me dizzy. Beer upset my stomach. I even turned down a chicken quesadilla Hot Pocket because I was so queasy.

“GAAAAH!” I screeched at one point. “What is WRONG with me?”

“I don’t know why you’re so nervous about everything today,” he said glumly. “It’s my day off work and I thought we – ”

“I just have so much to do at work tomorrow and I’m afraid I’ll forget something important and I really should have gone in on Wednesday and the newsletter isn’t done and I think I forgot to feed the cat and – ”

“I know how we can relax a bit,” he said, smiling impishly, reaching over to pet my leg.

I jumped. He tried to rub my shoulders and I tensed up. He kissed my neck and it tickled.

“I’m sorry,” I said, pulling back, “I don’t know why I can’t calm down, I’m just so worked up, like it’s physically affecting me and I know it doesn’t make any sense…”

“Baby, I’m just trying to help and you’re so worked up.”

“I know. And I know you’re… well… FRUSTRATED, but I’m just not in the mood to… you know.”

“I know,” he said, and looked away.

So I gave him a hand job.

Because, you know, my hands were shaking anyway. It worked out well for both of us.

Then I got my Klonopin prescription refilled on Monday, and now everyone is fine.

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This is my first TMI Thursday. Not much to it, I know, but I don’t really write much about hand jobs (anymore) so this is the best I can do at present.