i am trying to break your heart

sneak attacks on my heretofore blessedly well-healing emotional health: christmas commercials.

blast those stupid, sappy, heartstrings-pulling adverts that are actually SHREDDING me. i'm thinking about not even watching TV for the next 2 months.

i'm sure it is partly PMS this particular week, but honestly, i don't know what i am going to do to keep from devolving into an utterly inconsolable puddle of mess.

the surprise reunions, the mom's stuffing stockings, the 'i'll be home for christmas' theme smacking me like a heavy handed sucker punch. seriously. when a christmas commercial comes on the screen (like, every 3 seconds), i mute it and look down. i study my finger nails. i hum U2 songs in my head. because the one time i actually WATCHED one (i think it was for a cell phone of all things), i totally lost it. like, ape-shit meltdown sobfest 2009.

thank the Lord i will be in Portugal for the 2 weeks immediately preceeding christmas. hopefully i will be able to avoid most/all of the american commercialized canned-family-togetherness.

i don't want to become bitter about it. i don't want to make christmas into some kind of unholy grail of suffering and angst, or an outlet for 6 months of pent up grief.

but my gut reaction is to avoid as much of it as possible. even just hearing the christmas carols makes my stomach lurch a little bit, as i hear mom's beautiful honeysweet alto voice singing the harmony line in my head. i don't want to go through advent feeling like i am going to barf any second....

so. what's a girl to do? where's the balance line of acceptable sadness and pathology? would it be weird to see a therapist for the next 3 weeks just so i can try to be sure to keep my s*#t together long enough to skip the country?

i have no idea.