I’m going to see my sister Cate for Christmas this year! I’ve been singing Christmas carols since yesterday when Cate and I first started talking about it. I think that somewhere in the back of my mind I convinced myself that I was not entitled to have a nice Christmas with family. I never asked her if I could visit for Christmas. I believe I presumed that she was not interested.

It seems like I just eliminated holiday happiness from my list of life possibilities. This year I said to myself, “Why? Why have I decided that the holidays have to be lonely for me? Why do I choose to be alone?” I did not have a satisfactory answer.

I made all these assumptions without even investigating them. The irony is that I was an investigator for a number of years, and I was a good investigator. Perhaps I was only good because I wasn’t investigating myself!

Last Christmas was pretty good, but I was at the residential program at McLean Hospital. I told my sister that I think we can easily top last year’s Christmas since I was at a psychiatric hospital. I think the bar is low. She laughed. I love making her laugh. She’s always been wiser than me, even though I’m older. But, I can make her laugh. She’s a laser-focused type-A personality, and it always feels great to make Ms. Serious laugh.

I just took a chance, and asked her if I could come for Christmas. She not only said yes, but she offered and used frequent flyer miles to get me an airline ticket. I almost cried. I’m turning 40 next month, but I think my birthday present came early this year.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)