Enduring Christmas

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Enduring Christmas with my family. I should have stayed with my girlfriend instead. I don't know why I come to these things.

I'm sitting here in silence, surfing the web on a slow old BlackBerry. I don't talk to them because I have nothing in common with them. It's like they're from another planet.

They're middle class. The middle class are a different species. If I had a million dollars, I still wouldn't be one of them.

For once my uncle brought all three of his kids. A rarity because they're usually either working or studying or having an active social life or on vacation.

They're teens but they travel more in a year than I have in my life. They're often going to parties. They must have millions of friends. They take the hardest subjects in school but they always get straight As. And they work part time after school. Do they ever get tired? I could never handle that. I didn't get a job until I was 22.

Only one of them had work today. Just a morning shift. She drove herself to the Christmas barbecue. Of course she did. She's 18 now. I couldn't drive until I was 19 and I couldn't drive by myself until I was 21. But I always do everything later than them. I'm not precocious.

I try not to eat too much because I need to lose weight. They can eat as much as they want and never get fat. The youngest plays with his $500 nitro car. Every 12 year old needs a $500 toy.

Then my other uncle comes with his kids. His youngest is 18 and he brings his smoking hot girlfriend. I didn't bring my girlfriend. I'm too embarressed. I haven't even told them I have a girlfriend.

I'm unstable with relationships. She's my 4th girlfriend in 3 years. I never know how long my relationships last. The previous year I introduced my girlfriend to my family. The relationship ended a month later. I needn't have bothered. Now I'm shy to introduce my current girlfriend to my family. Or even tell them I have one. I've only known her for a month. My cousin is 12 younger than me but he's been with his girlfriend for aeons. I didn't even have my first girlfriend until I was 27. I'm not precocious like them. I'm always a decade or so behind them in all of my achievements.

I guess they grew up with good, hard working middle-class parents. They gave them support and guidance. I grew up with a single mother who never worked a day in her life. She couldn't share her life experience with me because she didn't have any life experience.

My mother is a hoarder. She spends a lot of time watching basic cable and for a time, I took after her. By my mid twenties I took a long, hard look at myself and I felt disgusted with myself. At the time I was only working two days per week. The rest of the time I played on my Super Nintendo and watched Star Trek. I realised that I was the lowest of the low. Not even working-class. But my middle-class uncles and cousins leaped from achievement to achievement.

The older cousin came too. With his wife. He got married just before I got my first girlfriend but he's 6 months younger than me. I'm the oldest cousin and the least mature. We're near the house he bought. I'm still renting like a shmuck. I'm paying off someone else's mortgage. Later today he and his wife are leaving for their vacation. I don't travel because maybe if I save my income, I might be able to buy a house before retirement age.

I don't say a word to them. Even then it's still stressful being around them. I hate them and admire them and fear them and envy them all at the same time. Such conflicting emotions confuse and exhaust me.

Afterwards I'll go home and rest with my girlfriend. Around her I can relax and be myself and not worry about how superior my cousins are.

Stop it! stop it! I mean it, stop comparing yourself to these people. You said it yourself, you have nothing in common with them.

They have lots of friends, that's because they are social people. They probably get upset if they're on their own for five minutes. Lots of sociable people can't stand their own company, that's what drives them to be sociable. Then they feel anxious over how many likes they get on whatever they're on, because they're desperate for everyone to like them. And they're driven to be successful because if you've always had stuff you don't know if you can survive without it. If all their friends are like them they must feel they have to have all those things and do all those things just to be normal. And they look happy because they have to even if they're not because they care what other people think. They'll probably all end up as alcoholics.

Next time pretend to be ill just think about how miserably you were around them this year, that would make me feel ill. The middle classes don't exist to make other people happy.

Sounds like you’re comparing yourself to other people. You really don’t need to do that!

OP, especially in this season, it is important to remember, that your life, even with all its limitations and travails and irritants, is still somebody else's fairy tale.

I for some reason ["blood is thicker than water" even if it is odd blood] still get invited over to my upper class relations' lake house several times a year, sometimes at xmas also when they come down from Bellevue, and I go there even though we have nothing in common, just to enjoy the gourmet food and the rich and calming country environs, step out onto the dock and take in the hypnotic lake waves eternally ebbing and flowing.