Have yourself a merry little Christmas

I don't know why I tag these letters "friends" sometimes. I go back and forth on whether we ever were, but we surely aren't now. Maybe it's because that's what I wish for. I just want my friend back.

This holiday season is so weird, since it's the first one without my mom. Her absence is so palpable as I observe my holiday traditions, a chunk gouged out that can't be ignored.

So I try to find comfort in traditions that never involved her, like my yearly read/listen of the Dash and Lily trilogy (the books, not that Netlix mess). But then, in one of Dash's chapters, he pulls a book off the shelf at his mother's home and finds a poem by Lorca. And my brain is once again awash in memories and questions that feature you.

It happened again today when I got an email from the NYT, heralding the release of puzzle-themed pajamas for the whole family. I would totally buy those for you, and your little guys, and even for your wife, if we were still friends. (I'd get Wordle, of course.)

And The Woobles introduced a Bluey bundle the day after Thanksgiving. I would have snatched that right up and made those for you guys, too.

My therapist tells me it's not really anything about you, or about our friendship, that is making it so difficult for me to let go of you. It's that my OCD brain loves the puzzle of WHY you chose to opt out of the world as I know it. And since that brain still doesn't have an answer, it comes back to the puzzle over and over again. Especially in times of high stress, like grieving the death of a parent, worrying over the health of one's remaining parent, constant work uncertainty, preparing to sell one's house and move, and having one's own possible (probable?) death looming large on the horizon of "soon."

I'm moving for my dad's sake. But I hope that the new town, a place we've never spent time together, will help me forget you. My therapist asked me yesterday that if she had a magic wand and could use it to change one thing about my situation regarding you, what would it be? Without hesitation I told her I wish I had never known you. And I actually mean that. But I know that's impossible. So forgetting you is the best I can hope for.

Please never do this to anyone else. If you find that you can no longer maintain a friendship with someone you were close to, at least have the decency to say so, and to tell them why. I think I deserved that much from you.