Farewell To You and the Youth I Have Spent With You.

Maybe when I was a little girl I idealized you.  Maybe I was just in denial of what you really were.  Are, actually.  This Christmas is going to be a little different from years of past, but at least it will be an honest Christmas.  This year, I won't be sitting amongst people I don't even know, and people who consider me unimportant.  Sheep's clothing for Christmas, wrapped up with a little bow...
I will be spending Christmas with the people who love me, and the people who show me every day that I'm important to them.  I will be drinking lots of wine, singing lots of songs, and it will be the happiest day of my life because I will be sharing it with my son, and all the people he has grown to love.  And those people are lucky to have his love.
I will never again so easily trust, and no one will have the opportunity to try and ruin my life ever again.  Yours is not a world that I recognize.  I can't walk around pretending the way you can.  Pretending everything's fine.  Pretending I love my family.  Pretending I'm not the loneliest and saddest woman on the face of the Earth.  I will never pretend.  I will tell evil people that they are evil.  I will stay home if I don't feel like seeing someone's disgustingly fake smiling face "How ARE yooooou?"  And I will never come to another Christmas gathering with you again.  And when everyone starts dwindling away, and Carter and I are still here, you will have wished that you stood up for what was right when you had the chance.  But now it's clear I never knew you at all.  When I was a little girl, I actually thought you hung the moon.
But kids are stupid.