How do we label the memories that don’t fit easily into the narrative we call our story?

It’s hard to find the right language to describe who and what I am, in reference to all I’ve been through.

I was a victim, but I was also a bully, a fighter, a survivor, and a brat. I have mental illness, but I’m also a little quirky, and at the same time a bit of a conformist. There’s no neat little box in which to stuff my whole story.

Christmas memories spill out all over around the boxes in which I try to stuff them, refusing to fit in with any simplistic labels.

Growing up, Christmas was magical and confusing. While he normally hated just about everything, my father LOVED the winter holidays (almost as much as he loved Independence Day and his fireworks). Every Christmas Eve he took us on a ride around town, showing us the best light displays Rutland had to offer. He would take us to the radio station and hand us cash, and my brother and I would run in and donate to the WSYB Christmas Fund and get a chance to go “on the air” with our local DJ. We never had a lot of money (we were working-class poor), but somehow we always had a lot of presents under the tree, even if the toys were mostly second-hand.

And for the most part, the regular violence we lived with was suspended for the holidays. Christmas was a happy time.

Oh, how I loved Christmas! I relaxed a bit into the joy of the season. As a little kid, I was able to stay in the moment and partake of the merriment. Plus, we were allowed to have candy on Christmas. Yum.

It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I began to find the holiday cheer disturbing. I found myself feeling cheated – that if we could act like a real family for a few days every winter, why couldn’t we do it more often? I lost that sense of magic, unable to enjoy what was happening in the moment. Instead, I resented the reality of our every day lives.

Today, I love Christmas as an expression of what I value most year-round – love of family, friends and community. I get to amp it up a little this time of year.

Yet I’m struck that there’s not that much different between the celebrations of now and yesteryear. I celebrate the holidays with gusto and love and charity – just like my father did. I find myself wondering what it would take for me to amp it up, say, in February, or June, instead of December.

I also find myself understanding something about my father that is hard to admit, because it doesn’t fit in those already labeled boxes.

My father loved me.