Most of my family is half way across the country, but I had friends that I’d spend Christmas with. I learned over time that these weren’t very good friends though, and eventually cut their toxic bullying out of my life. Last Christmas was the first one spent alone.

I almost didn’t know what to do with myself. The weeks leading up to Christmas, I picked up extra shifts at work since I had the time instead of running around picking up stuff they’d want to buy off of Facebook for Christmas gifts. The night before I fell asleep early because I wasn’t frantically making food for the next day. The day of, I slept in instead of getting up at 5am to start breakfast. I casually had coffee and breakfast instead of cleaning up gift wrapping paper and starting prep for dinner. Around 4pm, I started making myself dinner of roasted turkey thighs with garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed fiddleheads that I could never have since everyone else thought they were gross. I drank half a bottle of white wine, which I never do since I didn’t like getting drunk around my “friends”. I put away food and then fell asleep on the couch, leaving a huge mess that I didn’t even worry about with no one complaining about it. And most importantly, I didn’t have a single panic attack the entire time.

Sometimes you don’t realize how toxic things are until you cut them out of your life.