December 25, 2003

• Yesterday afternoon, Greyfox and I were in the kitchen, torturing the dog, when…

  
  

  Relax, no animals were actually harmed.  It’s just that Koji can’t stand for there to be a hug unless he’s in the middle of it.  We were hugging and he couldn’t get to us.

  
  

  He was on his hook of detention–you’re still relaxed, aren’t you.  I said no animals were harmed.  It’s not actually the DOG that goes on the hook, but the cord that clips onto his collar is looped over a coat hook by the door.  When he comes in from out on his chain in the yard, he is always hyper, and he goes on the hook for some decompression time.  Otherwise he gets “puppity” all over the place, bounces off furniture and walls, etc.  It’s simpler with the hook, as are other times such as when I’m cooking or Doug’s washing dishes, when the hazards of a puppity dog are increased.

  
  

  Anyway, as I was saying, Greyfox and I were standing in the kitchen, just out of reach of the dog, hugging and smooching.  I had been gathering up the ingredients to begin preparing Doug’s Christmas brownies when Greyfox came into the kitchen.

  
  

  After we had done a bit of the huggling stuff and laughed at the dog’s attempts to get to us and his reproachful looks, then reassured him verbally that we loved him anyway, Greyfox spoke somewhat hesitantly:  “Y’know, I was thinking just a little bit ago that this Chrismas… doesn’t suck.”

  
  

  I didn’t respond immediately, just indicated I was listening and let him go on.  He explained that most of the Christmases he can remember did suck.  There were the ones when he was a kid when there was nothing, not even enough to eat, when his father was either in the nut house or out and loaded and/or crazy.  Then there were ones before he moved here when he was drunk and disorderly, in or freshly out of bad relationships (apparently the only kind he’s ever had, which is quite understandable for someone with NPD), and after he moved here when the economic insecurity, and always either the drugs or the cravings for them, were making him miserable.  He has had a Scroogelike dislike for the Holidays as long as I’ve known him, and apparently even before that.

  
  

  After he had done explaining that lukewarm endorsement of this year’s holiday season, I thanked him for the reminder.  I’d been a little bit down from both the current fibro flare-up and its consequent lack of shopping for presents or preparations for a proper holiday feast.  I was feeling both guilty and left out, down on myself for letting myself get left out, if that makes any sense (and it doesn’t, so don’t sweat it if you don’t get it).  After a moment of thought, I agreed with Greyfox’s assessment:  it doesn’t suck.  It doesn’t suck being clean, sober and sugar-free.  It doesn’t suck having him neither drunk nor stoned nor reeking of tobacco smoke.  It doesn’t suck having him really HERE for once, after all those years when he just robbed me of my solitude without providing me any companionship.

  
  

  It is not a great Christmas, not even close to any of the ones I recall from earliest childhood while my father was still alive and neither evil nor want had entered my awareness.  It’s not great in comparison to a few of the happy ones I arranged for Doug after we moved here when he was little.  Being ill sucks, sucks some of the “greatness” out of the holiday for all three of us this year.  But this year is the first one since Greyfox really joined our family.  Before this, he was just the outsider squatting here, either sneaking his contraband addictive indulgences or not bothering to sneak but just indulging, out of control.  He’s right:  being clean and having him clean and loving being clean doesn’t suck at all.

  • 8:02 am
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