Beautiful. I recently gave away all the winter holiday decorations I had been saving to pass on to my children someday. But I'm almost 50 and I have come to realize that my dream of being a mother will not come true. At least, not the way I hoped/imagined.

This season, people have already started arguing with me that I should've kept everything, that I don't know what the future holds, that I made a mistake and I'm just being bitter. They don't understand that unpacking that stuff and looking at it every year is DEVASTATING to me. It only reminds me of something I don't have that I so dearly wanted. Being free of that stuff allows me to focus on my life AS IT IS, and enjoy what I DO have. I don't feel any bitterness about it. Some sorrow, sure, but I know letting go is the right thing to do. At least for me. So this all makes sense to me.

P.S. Our culture is dead-set on blaming women for "choosing the wrong men." But we conveniently forget to mention that we live in an oppressive patriarchy, which means that everyone's baseline is misogyny. So the odds of choosing a man who can overcome the strict confines of masculinity in order to examine his own misogyny, enjoy soft holiday traditions like what you describe, and be emotionally available and excited to share love and vulnerability with you is not an easy ask. The onus is NOT on you. You didn't choose badly. We just don't have a lot of choices to begin with. <3