As I think of it, "Holiday Fear" isn't quite the proper title for my last journal entry (though I'm not going to edit it now).

I don't fear the holiday season, and didn't even really fear the party. The best way to decribe my feelings toward the holiday season is basicly, numb.

I don't have a dislike for the holidays, and certainly feel no ill-will towards anyone who's especially happy during the season. It's not a "bah, humbug" thing. Just for a while now, it just hasn't meant a whole lot to me, and just doesn't do much for me.

There was a time that the season was full of awkward and uncomfortable family events, and a couple incidents that made me dread the holidays for years to follow, but all that has been in the past for a while now, and I'm comforatble with a certain safe distance and controlled dosage of family.

I guess in getting over that, the season lost its specialness, and now it's just a period of crowded shopping malls to avoid, and last minute gift decisions.

Many people have tried to encourage me to be somehow different during the season, and while I can't really be anything but myself, I'll at least try not to depress them with my lack of enthusiasm if I can. So when the holiday parties come up, espeically in proportion to the amount of people there, I think I'd rather just pass on them, and spend the time by myself.

One of the problems with this, is that's a bad habit, especially if you've got some goals of meeting new people.

As I get older, it's harder and harder to really meet and connect with anyone. Again I think this goes back to the past, where since I moved around a lot, the turnover rate in friends was astoundingly high. The net result was that I never really connected with a group of people until pretty late in life, and even then, pretty tenuously. Unfortunately, I find it pretty easy to let people drift away, or to let me drift away from them, and I have to work hard to keep relationships up. It's just too easy for me to let things disintigrate through lack of action.

So, that with the season makes for an easy avoided company party. Not from fear, but worse, indifference.