A Quick Holiday Post
Just because I am my family’s black sheep and it’s on my mind. Holidays can be incredibly rough for those of us who have been rejected by our families for whatever reason—orientation, faith, family cycles of abuse, politics, etc.
Long before I was a priest, I was the person my family blamed for my parents’ dysfunctional marriage, my family’s larger abusive dynamics, and their abusive behavior toward myself and my sibling.
I left home when I had just turned 16. I would have left earlier, but I wanted to wait to be legal to work and drive, and to see if my younger sibling would leave with me. He opted not to, and for a long time, I was simply alone.
Legally alone, as well. I was an emancipated minor. My family ensured they had no legal responsibilities, either.
Sitting in a quiet, dark apartment that you cannot afford to heat, listening to everyone else celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving through the walls, is one of those experiences which stick with you. I have been homeless around the holidays as well, which is its own brand of loneliness.
As a priest, I get to take the occasional soap box. Part of my job, after all, is to remind people of the divine.
I did not know that I was not alone. I did not know that my spirits sat beside me in an empty, dark apartment, huddled in the blankets from my bed and peering through the curtains at the families coming and going. I did not know that they stayed with me, watching me battle bitterness at the sound of other people’s happiness, watching me pace as I tried to numb myself.
It wasn’t their fault I was unhappy. Life goes on, no matter how we feel about it.
This one is for the vodouizan without families. The ones who are far away from their community. The ones who do not have a community yet. This is for the people sitting alone on the holidays, the ones who know how dark a holiday can be.
You aren’t alone, you know. Your spirits sit with you, check on you. You may not be able to sense them, but they are there.
I’m just here to remind you of that.
