That Grieving Girl

Every year I sat on Christmas Eve crying.

Not because I could not do it.
I was already doing it all anyway.
The lights.
The presents.
The organising.

I cried because it was not how it was meant to look.

I had this image in my head of what Christmas was supposed to be.
A partner.
A family dynamic.
Someone else sharing the load or filling the space.

But the truth is, I had been doing Christmas on my own for years.

What changed was not my circumstances.
It was the expectation.

I stopped letting Christmas hold the weight of what I did not have.
I stopped waiting for my baby daddy to fill a void he was never going to fill.
I stopped hoping the season would give me something it could not.

This year I made Christmas my way.
Based on where my life actually is.
Not where I thought it should be.

And for the first time, I did not feel sad being on my own.
Because I was no longer grieving an image.

I created magic around my reality, not my lack.

And that changed everything.