On the 19 December 1843 Charles Dickens published a novella recounting the story of an old, miserable rich man who was visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve - Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come. As a child I was vaguely familiar with this story prior to the Muppets version, but it was really when the Muppets came out with their retelling of the story that I got interested.
To me, the scariest part of the whole story was not the graveyard scene (although that was spooky as heck to a kid!!) but rather the idea of looking into the window of the Cratchit's home and seeing what life would be like without Scrooge......people talking about him like he doesn't exist anymore, life going on without him, relationships going on without him, the world continuing to turn long after his memory was gone. There's something in intriguing and inherently very painful about the thought that life existed before you and will continue to exist long after you are gone, and that one day you won't be remembered anymore.
The idea of legacy is one that humanity has always been fascinated with. Pharaohs and Emperors built monuments and sphinxes and statues to try and defeat the passing of time. Donald Trump built Trump tower, artists paint frescos, musicians write songs, poets write poems, authors write books, politicians give speeches, all in an effort to become immortal for their output. It's one of the primary drivers for every person alive that they want to be remembered and immortalised - it is through legacy that we beat death. We subvert the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come by reminding people that we were here. We all want to cheat death.
Interestingly I had a similar existential moment the other day. I was surfing Facebook (a habit I've long since wanted to shake and have NEVER quite gotten there despite several attempts!) and I stumbled upon a profile I had long since given up ever finding - that of my stepmother. There she was, in full colour - celebrating her wedding anniversary to my father, water skiing with my brother, celebrating beating cancer (yeah, what the!), videos with two dogs, living her best life. I haven't laid eyes on my mother, my father or my brother in 20 years. Let me repeat that - it's been 20 years. I had heard through the grapevine that she may have left him, but turns out, not so. They're very much still together.
Of course, this information doesn't shock anyone else but me. It doesn't hurt anyone else but me. It doesn't rock anyone else's world - after all, who cares whether they're married or not, together or not, seeing my brother or not - who cares right?
I'll tell you what IS weird though.....from the moment my stepmother came into the picture, I at the tender age of 12/13 felt like a stranger in my own home. An outsider. Unwanted. Uninvited. I was an inconvenience, and I was very much reminded of that every single day - BLATANTLY, EXPLICITLY reminded. My father told me regularly that he would be far happier if I would drop off the end of the planet. He told me the whole family would be happier if I just didn't exist.
And there in front of me was proof.
It's not like I wish I was included - GOOD GOD NO.
What hurts though is the idea that they finally got what they wanted. Their abuse, their rage, their manipulation, their HATRED of everything I was and am got them exactly the life they wanted. The end goal was to get rid of me and in the last 20 years they've gone on to live the life that they could have had all along had I never been.
I've never felt more disorientated, more disembodied - I felt like Scrooge looking in the window of the Cratchit's home, seeing an alternate reality where my name had never passed any of their lips - a life where my existence was just wiped from all memory. A life where I had no legacy at all.
I wonder whether, in the middle of the night, my name ever crosses their mind. I wonder whether they ever think of me at all. I wonder whether there is any 'blue tinge' to any of those early memories. My stepmother was married to my father around 5 years when I was kicked out of home - 5 years of raising a teenage girl, and all of the complications that entails.....does she ever include the image of me in any of those 5 years of memories? I mean, I was there on their wedding day. I was a bridesmaid. I stood there while they said those vows, I was there next to them when they took the black and white photo she posted on Facebook. Yet it's like it never happened. Like the first 19 years of my life only ever happened to me. I was poison to them - perhaps as much as they were to me.
I'm told that me dwelling on these things is only hurting me. That's true. I should just let them go to the wind like I thought I had all those years ago. But seeing that Facebook profile has shifted my whole frame of reference a little - I feel like I have to get used to this new ground under my feet now. I'm used to them being 'dead to me' - I guess I just didn't quite account for the reality that I might be dead too.
