I wish I could have stolen some of your Christmas’ growing up.
I did not have the easiest of childhoods. Most of us didn’t. I can remember going across the street to my paternal Grandmother’s, where my only aunt would crack the door with chain behind it only to say to me “We ain’t got nothing for you,” then close the door and I’d take the steps down and come home. It was like this every year.
I never really had any gifts and even when I did, they weren’t under a tree, wrapped up, as is supposed to be the custom. I started to get gifts more regularly when I started hustling in school and could buy my own.
Lunch tickets were my thing. The better to do kids were always willing to pay half to two-thirds price for a full price ticket. It worked for me. After all I hated school lunch. The goodies to be had after school from funds made and / or saved were what we wanted.
My self purchased gifts were usually He-Man or G.I. Joe action figures and vehicles. Sometimes, I’d even wrap them up and pretend. I had to remember to save up enough to get at least one pair of sneakers, jeans and shirt that I could run for a little while or get made fun of.
I grew up hating this time of year. Wasted a lot of time crying about what I wish my life had been or could be.
As I got older, things never really got better. The holidays are marked, for me, by major losses… Loss of friends, jobs, reminders of what the holidays used to be for me and finally deaths of many of the few I have allowed to get close.
I have come to realize that I have been deprived. At first, by others… Later, by myself. I had become a Grinch. My heart withering and cold… I realized that I wasn’t alone so much as I was keeping to myself.
Today, I am proud to say that I am no longer that Grinch. I am not sad this year. I don’t have much, but this year I will do the best I can for my son. I always make sure he has but the last couple of years have been extra rough, for the both of us.
On the first day… The Grinch is no more and I can count this among my triumphs.
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