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The dark cloud isn't going anywhere

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She was always a winter hater. It was cold, rainy or snowy and always felt like there was this grey tint permanently glued to the air. Even when the sun came out, the rays seemed to be in a wrestling match against the wind and they lost every time. She thought there was always some kind of beauty buried in everything, if only she shut the fuck up and squinted hard enough to dig it out.

At the beginning of the holidays once again, she found herself unable to shake that slight dread for all that awaited. Still, she loved the sweets, the snuggles and a ton of wine but all of it seemed a bit overboard. In her contemplation, she tried to think back on why she went through the pain - the swollen ankles from the shopping, the hot and crowded kitchen, the half-hearted hugs exchanged with too many. Why? What was the true benefit of it all? Many moons ago, the house she grew up in was a veritable orgy of decorations. It took her two days to get everything up and another two or three to get it all down. They rarely had company for Christmas, maybe three times at most. Nobody ever came through to ooh and ahh. Once, she hurt her back taking everything down and said quite a few very un-jolly things. And every year was the same. Her mom announcing, "We're going to take a cruise across the pond!" She tried hard to keep a smirk from spreading across her face and knew better than to suggest that her mom was full of vast amounts of shit, so instead, she just smiled and nodded. The mother of pricks never took her on a thrilling cruise and the only trip she took her on was a voyage through her bullshit. All she wanted was to captain a submarine and drive into her mom's imaginary cruise ship. Sadly, submarine driving lessons didn't go well.

She needed warm arms wrapped around her because in the chaos of the holidays, that simple embrace was the only thing that felt real.