empty and alone in a crowded room. (P.S it's Christmas!)

It's that time of year again; Santa hats, tinsel and wrapping paper comes out, bank accounts get significantly emptier, and all we're left with is a belly ache and an album full of awkward family photos.

Two years ago I was drinking beer on chairlifts and zooming down mountains on my snowboard with two of my best friends in Canada.

Last year I was skyping my family from Melbourne (stuck there as a prisoner to the retail world) and later got drunk on the empty bars along Chapel St, sporting an incredible hangover during Boxing Day sales.

This year I am home again.

It will never ever feel like Christmas without my Dad but I’m happy to be back.

Though, I realized something upsetting today; My family is so incredibly damaged by everything that has happened to them, that, no matter how much they try to front it, they never can really enjoy something, like Christmas, for simply what it is.

Nothing distracts them from what is missing.

I think its okay to miss them. I miss my Dad every single day.

But I never, ever, ever, ever let it get in the way of my happiness. In fact, my having a happy and incredible life is a testament to him and how he raised me.

This Christmas, the 5^th since my Dads been gone, we had a small collection of family here at the family house.

The days are long gone when the entire set comes over. My beautiful father was undoubtedly the glue that held us together, kept the peace and made us laugh.

Before Heaven unfairly took my Dad away from us, Christmas was a hilarious and fun day that I looked forward too. We would always spend it at my Nana and Pa's house, which is a beautiful big house in the hills behind Byron Bay, with a big swimming pool which we would surround all day, eat ourselves stupid, and at night it was always a tradition that we would all play kelly pool laughing and reminiscing together.

The years following his death, we tried to carry on, but without my Dad, who was the most charismatic of us all, nobody’s heart is truly in it, and by dinnertime, everyone is just exhausted, like any old day.

Today was a step forward I guess, however small. We played kelly pool again for the first time since dad was here. By the end of it, everyone was having fun, but I just felt like it was forced to begin with. Things just used to fall into place.

I love my family. I do.

But I think they are too damaged to ever really enjoy days like this properly and that makes me sad. Even me, the strongest of us all, I’ll always have that empty feeling. It’s like every family get-together we have is a memorial of some sort. 

I don't want that.

There was one moment tonight, all 9 of us in the pool room, laughing at some of our rubbish pool skills and the banter being thrown around as it always used too between Dad and my uncles. I thought to myself, if there was ever a time when I should feel Dad around me, it should be now.

Its Christmas and here we all are.

So where are you Dad?

I don’t understand how I hear all these stories of people being able to sense their lost loved ones around them.

It’s not fair that I can’t see you, hear you or even feel you around me.

I’m so sick of being alone and feeling like I don’t have anyone. Everyone else in the family has their immediate family to go home to tonight. All my friends who come home for the holidays have their own bed to sleep in when they come home, I get a couch at various extended families living rooms. Dad, you were my only immediate family and you’ve left me alone. I’m so sick of being alone. It’s fucking not fair. Of all the parents and kids of anyone I’ve ever known, we were the closest and you meant more to me than any of their relationships. You were all I had. It’s not fair that I’m the one out of everyone that lost everything.

You left me 5 years ago and I’ve been alone ever since.

It’s just empty space all around me and always has been.

I’ve pushed away all my grief and sadness for nearly 5 years. It’s been so long that I don’t think I’ll ever really get that sad because I’m so good at being happy.

Am I meant to be sad to be able to sense you around me?

I don’t want to be sad. I just want the comfort of knowing I’m not alone.