Holiday angst

I have no idea why holidays of any kind always make me anxious. But then I've never really understood why my brain does what it does.

Mother's Day is kind of easy to figure out. I was raised LDS and I live in Utah and I never had children. No matter how much time passes or how much therapy I have, Mother's Day still triggers that ingrained belief that a woman's purpose is to have and raise children. Year after year - even though I get holiday wishes from nieces and nephews and siblings and friends - I still feel like I'm standing outside the gates of a party I should have been invited to but wasn't.

And then there is my relationship with my own mother. It is great, but I live with my parents so I'm always here. Yes, I tell her I love her and I give her a card and get her a gift and all of that, but it doesn't seem to me that it brings the same smile to her face as getting something in the mail or getting a phone call. I know I'm probably imagining it. I know she loves me just as much as my brother and sisters, but on holidays it seems less. And I have to hear about how sad she is that there were no cards in the mail and no one had called. I feel responsible somehow for the fact that she hasn't heard from anyone else. I end up texting my siblings to tell them to call her just so I don't have to see her mope. It is completely unnecessary, I'm sure. But I can't help feeling responsible for whether my mom is happy or not. I end up sitting in the same room as her no matter what she is doing. I sat on the couch for close to an hour just listening to her side of conversations with two of my sisters. I couldn't watch TV because she was on the phone, but I didn't dare leave the room and watch something in my room because it's her holiday and we're supposed to spend it together. By the end of it I was so agitated I could barely sit still.

I am very fortunate to still have my mom here to hug. And given my wonderful smorgasbord of genetic illnesses it is a good thing that I ended up being infertile. But Mother's Day still leaves me anxious and depressed.