Call me crazy, but there’s something jarring about walking into a drugstore to drop off a prescription for antidepressants and hearing Christmas ditties piped through the speaker system.
I’m not The Grinch, I swear. I just seem like that this time of year.
It’s nothing pervasive. I go about my days as I do during all the other calendar months. A routine keeps my mood and mind steady.
Visually, I can take all the lights and decorations we slap on eaves, tape to window frames and wear as necklaces. With night creeping in so early each afternoon and hanging around like that clueless last guest at the party each morning, the strings of white lights and colored bulbs are most welcome. I can smile or good-naturedly cringe as people pass by, winter coats unzipped in balmy Vancouver, flashing their ugly Christmas sweaters. (The ugly is intentional, right?) Lawns filled with blown-up Santas allow the decorating-challenged to make a BIG statement and I’m inexplicably amused each morning when I see them deflated, looking more like melted Frosty than jolly Saint Nick.
Any seasonal dissociation doesn’t come from my heart; it’s triggered by my ears. Those Christmas songs, everywhere.
Far from making spirits bright, the drugstore onslaught came off as mean-spirited. Neil Diamond, who is Jewish and presumably celebrated Hannukah, with the requisite “Happy” slapped in front of the holiday, sang a festive love-in imploring that “Children all get happy on Christmas Day.” The dude has released six Christmas albums. Ka-ching! Of course, he’s happy. Neil sang on, commanding that we “Sing a song of love” because “Love is all we need…on Christmas Day.”
All I really needed was to get my prescription filled. It’s possible I may have been particularly cranky—er, grinchy—since the paper in my hand had more on it than usual. For the past four years, I’ve only taken one medication, but after last week’s appointment with my psychiatrist, I walked away with four making the list. Presumably, the new cocktail won’t make get “get happy.” I just need to get by.
I tried to tune out Noël Neil. I’d get my anti-depressants and anxiety pills, grab some toilet paper if it’s on sale (no emergency, thank goodness) and head home.
Alas, no pills. The pharmacy is busy this time of year. (So it’s not just me!) I’d have to come back tomorrow. Oh, goody.
I made my way for the exit and then remembered I needed to pick up something else. I didn’t want to ask for help so I scanned shelves while the Eagles sang “Please Come Home for Christmas.” I was thankful for Don Henley singing the blues: “My baby’s gone, I have no friends.” Dark. I could relax. A range of emotions are okay this time of year. I navigated my way, scanning shelves full of antacids, powders professing to relieve constipation and pills that were supposed to help with chronic pain. Not what I needed, but knowing this didn’t propel me to sing “Joy to the World,” not even the non-holiday Three Dog Night version.
But even working through the blues, Henley opted to end the song on a cheery note, conjuring up a reunion with his “baby” when “There’ll be no more sorrow, no grief and pain and I’ll be happy, Christmas once again.” All righty then. Better than Metamucil.
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| Maybe more syrup is all I need. |
By now, you’ve probably misjudged me, a bah-humbugging Scrooge if not the Whoville-hating Grinch. While I don’t go all Buddy the Elf at this time of year, I did have fun decorating a tree in a sad little park. I don’t have a tree since turfing all my ornaments in early 2020, anticipating a cross-country move that never happened, but I’m good with plopping my stuffie of Rudolph on a side table, a nice reminder of the 1964 TV production which just so happens to be my favorite show in the whole wide world which I’ve blogged about not once but twice.
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| Decorating done! |
For me, this season is about managing expectations. I’m bipolar and getting too high or too low can be problematic. I don’t like song after festive song telling me to be merry-happy-joyous-cheery because this is without out a doubt The Best Time of Year. I’m all too aware that many people struggle this month, slogging through a rough patch that can’t be conveniently brushed aside by sucking on a candy cane, eating shortbread and drinking eggnog, spiked or otherwise.
I do like a number of Christmas songs, notably Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas,” Stevie Wonder’s “What Christmas Means to Me” and The Carpenters’ version of “Merry Christmas, Darling.” I’ll stop and smile the first time I hear “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” each December. Even that omnipresent Mariah Carey tune sounds fresh during its first three plays of the season. What I don’t like is being assaulted with the sounds of Christmas when I walk into a store, café or restaurant. If I’m not happy happy in that very moment, I feel like something’s wrong with me. Rocks in my stocking. Blitzen ougtta bite me in the butt. Why can’t I snap into that Christmas spirit on command?
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| A Muppet fave, festive in his candy cane apron. |
Is it weird that I don’t feel like humming umpteen rounds “fa la la la la” while trying to shop discreetly for a personal care remedy? A ghastly thought prompted me to stop lingering. I worried the store would play Paul McCartney’s “Simply Have a Wonderful Christmastime” which sounds like it was written by a second grader or, worse, The Muppets’ version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” which I always feel compelled to listen to all the way through, Miss Piggy predictably singing of five golden rings, the Swedish Chef unjustly AWOL or, worst of all, any rendition of “The Little Drummer Boy.” (Et tu, David Bowie?!)
Driven by my unmedicated anxiety, I returned to the pharmacy counter, begging to be pointed in the right direction. Aisle 7, between toothpaste and deodorant, top shelf. A-ha! My exit pass.
Seems I may have picked up athlete’s foot or some other itch-inducing infliction at the public pool. Let an $18 bottle of Funga Soap grant me relief. From burning toes if nothing else.
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