Merry F***ing Christmas 2021 – Luck and Bad Balls

One year ago, I moved into my new place.
One year ago today, to be exact.
It’s a bit staggering to me that a whole year has passed, but in terms of where we are at globally with this friggen pandemic, seemingly not passed at all.
But the following word jumble is NOT about the pandemic…ish…it’s about fucking Christmas.
I hope that “fuck” does not scare you off.

So, as of TODAY today?
I’m laying in my bed, all comfy in fresh sheets, if not a bit sweaty from wrestling the fitted sheet on my Tempurpedic mattress because about fourty five minutes ago, I spilled an entire steaming mug of David’s Fucking FANCY Christmas Tea (I wish THAT was it’s real name) tea in my bed, on my PREVIOUS set of fresh bedclothes that I’d just changed so that my bed would look like a fucking cloud.
And it did look like a cloud.
It really did.
Delightfully so.
My bed looked like a cloud…for about an hour.
It looked like THIS to be specific:

In fact, I’d JUST put the above picture up on the INSTAGRAM to illustrate the joy I was trying to create in the wake and dust of canceled plans, present mix ups…

SIDEBAR:
Last night, I watched my pal Ari open his gift while on FACETIME and quickly discovered that I’d sent Ari the present meant for Patricia and, OBVIOUSLY, vice versa.
This would not be a problem if Ari didn’t live in Manitoba and Patricia in Alberta.
Oh, Patricia…don’t worry…I will fix it.
FUCK.
END OF SIDEBAR

…vaccine line-ups, many announcements from many friends who’ve come in contact with the COVID infected, one strong booster hang over, the experience of wearing twenty-four masks into the Metro, overheating due to twenty-four masks in the previously mentioned Metro and not being able to see through my glasses and knocking over six LARGE containers of blueberries and just walking away from the mess, and a friggen partridge in an effing pear tree.

Not long ago, two sets of sheets ago to be exact, earlier this morning (9:00am is early) I woke, then took a moment to silently and nervously check my body and brain before moving, in response to fear that I would develop the second shot vertigo that appeared two days after the last needle.

It was fairly brutal, that vertigo.

Like “throw up through your hands” brutal.

After doing the body recon, then tentatively deciding that all seemed well (if not a bit headachy and just generally all over achy) I made a success plan for the day from behind my closed eyes.

Me: Are you willing to enjoy this Christmas, Sharron? Somehow?

Me: Yes. Yes, I fucking am.

SIDEBAR #2:
Oh yes, it seems there will be a lot more swears on here, people, hence the title. If these swears are not your jam (and it’s not for some, I get it), you should probably close this post.
Just do.
Please shut-er down, instead of writing me and asking me to curb my language, I implore you.
Your words will fall on deaf ears.
So, without ANY snark whatsoever, because to EACH their own, I wish you a f**k-free (as it were) Merry Christmas and also a non-irreverent Happy Holidays.
END OF SIDEBAR.

So, after I realized I DID not have vertigo, HUZZAH, I got out of bed, put on my slippers, and went onto the balcony in my Ramone’s t-shirt and lacy underwear, breathing in the sweet pot smoke wafting over top of the partition between me and my next door neighbour (Yes, I smell you Pot-Guy), plugged in my two trees and my balcony lights, giving anyone looking up a full lacy lady moon and not giving one single fuck.
I came back in, looked up instrumental Christmas music on my Spotify, fired up the bluetooth, stripped my bed and remade it in the expression and feeling of a FUCKING CLOUD, prepared myself a lovely breakfast (it was fucking delicious) and a POT OF DAVID’S FUCKING MAGICAL CHRISTMAS TEA and settled into my cloud bed for a cold winter’s Netflix Binge and maybe some book reading.

Phone pings.

Friend to Me On Text: Should we have turkey on Christmas Eve?

Me to Friend on Text: YESSSS!!!!

My 2021 Christmas redo plan part one started at the beginning of last week, when shit started to look dire.
I’d written my sister, Kim, asking her about one of my favourite Christmas traditions, her yearly Christmas Eve party…which after last year’s absence, she insisted would go on….till last week.
Smart all round.
I didn’t think I could go, at any rate…but I was glad to not be the Debbie Downer of the Matthews family.
Then both my sisters and I jumped on text about Christmas Day, which we agreed we would keep in the hopper, even if it meant putting on a lot of clothes and seeing each other in one of my sister’s backyards.
My mom is 90.
Just sayin’.
When I finished the text thread, and put down my phone, and cried.
Just fucking wept.

So close.
We were so close to almost normal lives again.
It aches, we were so close.
It makes a sound emit from my throat, we were so close.

Matthews.
Come on, Matthews.
Chin up.

Me: Are you willing to enjoy this Christmas, Sharron? Somehow?

Me: Yes. Yes, I fucking am.

I wiped my face, opened my phone back up, texting a bubble friend who also happens to be a Christmas non-traditionalist, and asked if he wanted to spend Christmas Eve together.
Non-traditionally, of course…but with traditions.
He was highly agreeable.
AND now? A TURKEY DINNER!?!?
Yes!!!!
In celebration of the future turkey dinner I excitedly wiggled under my duvet, knocking my MAGICAL FUCKING DAVID’S TEA off the bamboo writing table sitting beside me, on my bed.

ME: FUCK. FUCKEDY FUCK FUCKING FUCK WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAPPEN TO ME?

Yes.
I’m absolutely aware that this is not the worse thing to happen in the world right now…but you know…YOU KNOW THIS MOMENT!
I KNOW YOU DO.
It’s like when you are level 1000 angry and you catch your sweater on a door handle.
RIGHT!?

Then, I just laid there, feeling the tea seep down through the duvet, imagining how it would be okay if I didn’t change my sheets OR duvet but instead just went back to sleep for a year, letting all of it dry while I slept.
I’m just being honest.
My excuse is that I’m hella hung over from my booster and suffering a bit (A LOT) of Omicron Christmas existential crisis.
I know I’m not alone in this.

I sighed in my tea soaked, cloud-like bedclothes.
Like, sighed loudly enough for POT-GUY next door to hear, then got up and started the work of mending the situation…a feat which included the clothes dryer, a hair dryer, 11-out-of-10 bed-making aerobics and a finger of scotch.
Yes, before noon.
Fuck that shit.

So, now, I’m back in bed, Christmas piano music still soothing my savage-beastness, ALL the trees plugged in, a mid level scotch warming my belly, surrounded by soft, clean sheets, in a dry bed, with a dry duvet in a new cover.
YES, I had to put the duvet in the cover…of course.
Not for the faint hearted.
The new sheet/duvet set up reminds me of my coroner outfit from Frankie (blue, blue, blue) and I’m not mad at it.

Blue SKY. It’s a blue sky now. It’s a sky with NO clouds.

Flip it around, Matthews.

Yes, upon reflection, Sharron, you’ve had WAY worse Christmases.
WAY.
I’m 10000000000 ways lucky.
I am.
But that doesn’t mean that the present situation does not ROYALLY SUCK BAD BALLS.

Two things can be true at once:
Luck and Bad Balls.

In an effort NOT to doom scroll, I looked through pictures on my phone from the last few weird and wonderful Christmases.

These pictures.
These pictures say it all, and say nothing.

Two things, true at once.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four years ago.

My first Christmas alone.

That was the year performed a new version of my Christmas Sing A-Long show, a show I’d done the five previous Christmases with my soon-to-be ex husband.
THAT year, the year of the end of my marriage, I would do the show mostly by myself, but with my same support crew.
When I got to the day of the show, this ALL seemed like a very fucking BAD idea.

Luckily, it kind of turned out.

(Luck)

The night of the show, I stood backstage in this black sequinned jumpsuit, just steps from where the above picture was taken, sporting a new hair colour that didn’t remind me of SAD-MARRIED-NOW-SEPARATED ME…shaking.
I was shaking.
I was terrified.
I was having a panic attack.

(Bad Balls)

I stood frozen, asking myself over and over again how I could walk on that stage.
How in the fuck could I do a Christmas show in the very same place I’d done a Christmas show with my ex-husband for five years?
How could I stand onstage looking at everyone looking back at me from the audience, knowing what had happened.
How could I do this?
Answer: I could NOT.
I was literally crawling out of my skin in the green room of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.
Micah Barnes entered from the nearby dressing room, and took me in.

He: How are you, Girlfriend?

Me: I can’t do it. How can I do this? I won’t make it, Micah…I won’t make it. I won’t. I just won’t. I won’t.

He grabbed my hand, tucked it lovingly into the small of my back and sat down behind me, where I could not see him, and said

He: It’s okay. Go through the first ten minutes of the show…out loud…a couple of times. Just go through it.

And I did.
Over and over, until I felt almost calm.
I will never forget that.
I will never forget my hand in his, facing forward into whatever fucking future was coming, supported from a place I couldn’t even see.

(Luck and Bad Balls)

When I walked onstage about fifteen minutes later? The sold out house gave me a standing ovation.
I’ve not felt anything like that energy in my life, before or after.
It was amazing, it was fucking amazing, and I hope to NEVER have to feel it again.
On stage, in that amazing hopefully singular moment, I burst into tears that I thought would never stop.
But the applause did not stop till I got my shit together.
 Again, it was a singular moment in my life that I’m happy to have as a memory, but I’m equally glad it’s behind and not in front of me.

After the applause died away that fateful night, and my life/self began the work of coming back to me in 100 ways, I took in this wonderful and warm group of people

Me: WE all knew this show was going to be a bit of a pig fuck for me…but we can do this together, right? And look?

I point to the screens on either side of me.

Me: No more stupid song sheets!! There are screens with all your words on it!! Let’s look up, instead of down at our hands!! LET’S do this shit!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS BITCHES!!!

And on we went.
What a Christmas that was.
Terrible and amazing.

(Luck and Bad Balls)

Oh, ALSO?
At the time, I was having a sexy relationship with a 36 year old farmer that looked like Burt Reynolds (from the centrefold years) and with him (and while I had a raging flu) I had one of the best Christmas Eves of my life…but that’s another story, for another time.
(Luck and Bad Balls…and not the Farmer…his balls were just great…if I may…and I may)

What a fucking time it’s been, these last four years, this last year in my new home…and it’s suddenly Christmas again.
WEIRD-ASS PANDEMICAL CHRISTMAS.
AGAIN.

I have to say, sitting here in my comfy NOT WET bed, admiring my Christmas trees, watching the snow fall out of my window, listening to…

(Oh wait…I have to SING ALONG WITH INSTRUMENTAL TO FIGURE OUT THE SONG playing)

…oh my god…
….hahahah….
….hahahahaahah…
…well, it’s an instrumental of O’ Holy Night (if you know, you know…LUCK AND BAD BALLS)
… and I DO have to say, getting used to Christmas alone, but not alone, has been a pretty fucking beautiful journey.

Beautiful.

I WAS going to say beautiful AND terrible…but after taking my hands off the keyboard and reflecting in truth, it wasn’t terrible…not really.
There were TERRIBLE parts, to be sure…but it’s really been a full meal deal, a tapestry of story and feelings.
I really found myself through these past, extremely weird, four years of holidays.
I found my peace.
I found and remembered my childhood love of Christmas.
I found that I didn’t have to be desperate for my holidays to occur as if out of the pages of a book or the story on a TV screen.
And along this weird and wonderful holiday path, I found a lot of love…like, A LOT of love.
Some from strangers, some from acquaintances, some from lovers, a lot from my chosen family, my born family and friends.

I’m lucky.
…and sometimes? Lucky with a side of bad balls.

(Shrugs)

Two things, true at once.
I love this concept…because it lets you endure one thing, while enjoying the other thing.
They don’t cancel each other out.

So, while the world turns in on itself, as we worry about our friends and family, as everything changes, as we lament the holiday that we thought we might have and feel like we are back at the start, while we suck/dry the proverbial MAGIC FUCKING TEA out of our metaphorical duvets, I wish you LUCK alongside your BAD BALLS.

Me: Are you willing to enjoy this Christmas, Sharron? Somehow?

Me: Yes. Yes, I fucking am.

I hope you are too.

All my love and wishes.
I wish you all luck on the side of whatever brand of balls you are getting in your stocking…because that’s a life.

December 18th, 2021 – S.M.
Toronto, ON *  FROM THE BED

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