There is a Santa Claus ... Kinda

Do you remember how you felt when you realized there was no Santa Claus? To be honest, this wasn’t an overly traumatic experience to me. I just hit a point in my life where the concept of a fat man with a beard crawling down a chimney we didn’t have while a bunch of reindeer hung out on the roof seemed pretty far-fetched, especially when Mom wouldn’t let me go digging in her closet or the laundry room the month before Christmas.

Having a sister who was 8 years my junior made the whole “there’s no Santa” thing easier for me. I went from believer to co-conspirator, helping my parents keep the dream alive for another little girl. Helping craft Santa’s replies to her heartfelt letters, staying up late on Christmas Eve to wrap presents, and making the milk and cookies and carrots for Rudolph disappear was almost as much fun as curling up in bed with my eyes squeezed shut tight, hoping against hope that the Big Man was downstairs dumping a big load under the tree.

But even though my rite of passage into holiday adulthood was relatively painless, I read a blog entry by my friend Nicole over at Vox the other day about her son realizing there was no Santa, and it brought tears to my eyes.

“Why does something that seemed so real have to be fake?” he asked.

Ouch. When you think about it, the crumbling of the Santa myth is one of our first real experiences of the human condition. We all build sand castles in the air, believe in hopes and dreams and a sense of security that we wrap around ourselves like a blanket. And sometimes those castles hold, and sometimes they crumble or just vanish into the night like Santa taking off in his sleigh.

Over time, I’ve asked myself the same question Nicole’s son posed. I didn’t realize that was what I was doing, because I wrapped it up in the complexities and what-ifs that come with adulthood. But the bottom line was still the same.

I sheltered myself in the happy, carefree life that is college for years, sure the world held nothing for me but big adventures and literary success. Then I found myself working a day job and barely making ends meet half the time, and generally far too annoyed and tired for either adventure or much of anything literary.

I cocooned myself in the myth that my marriage, in spite of the fact that it was fraying at the seams, would go on forever. How could you love enough to say “I do” and then turn around ten years later, go ‘nevermind, you know what? I don’t after all” and move on in a cold, scary world, alone and much more broken than you were the first time you faced it on your own?

I phrased my questions at those points in my life in longwinded and sometimes maybe even eloquent ways. But the bottom line is that the sad, disappointed child in me was hurting over the crumbling of a myth, and stomping her foot with tears in her eyes, demanding to know why something that seemed so real was fake.

I’ve seen this kind of thing happen many times. Sometimes it is the crumbling of a myth, other times it is the end of something so real that going on without it makes the person left behind feel almost imaginary. Maybe it is the death of a loved one, the loss of a job that you actually enjoyed, or just waking up one day and realizing that you’re not 21 anymore. Maybe it is questioning the religion that kept you feeling safe and warm all those years to the point that you can’t quite believe everything you were taught.

But here’s the weird thing. Sometimes, we have to give up myths to see the real beauty in our lives. Over time, I’ve come to accept that I’m most likely never going to be a famous novelist. And instead of hating the day job that came instead, there are moments when I look around at the people I’ve met and the places I’ve been because of it and I’m almost glad.

And as for the other great myth in my life? Well, if it had turned out to be true, then I wouldn’t be where I am now. I wouldn’t be a girl who found true love, or who knew that when she had to she could get by on her own. I wouldn’t be this person who looks around at what I have with so much appreciation today because I know, really know, that sometimes what you think is there does a slow fade and leaves you standing in a big pile of “where the hell did my life go?”

And oddly enough, those grown-up realizations aren’t all that different than being the kid who finds out there is no Santa. You’re sad, disappointed, and at first might have a hard time trusting anything you once believed in. If Santa isn’t real, what about everything else you hold to be true?

Then over time, something happens. You realize that even though losing Santa is bittersweet, Christmas still rocks anyway. It’s pretty awesome that Mom and Dad go to all that trouble to see you all shocked and excited and joyful on Christmas morning. It’s downright cool that you have a warm, comfy home and good food and cheerful friends and a tree full of lights and homemade ornaments blinking in your living room. It’s pretty damn amazing that the human mind made up Santa and Rudolph and all that happy stuff.

Without sounding trite, you start feeling really good about the fact that the myth is about what lives inside of you and those you love. And that part – those hopes and dreams and sense of human connection – are real. The myths are just the pictures we painted to express those feelings somehow, and just because they aren’t technically real doesn’t make them less beautiful or worthwhile.

And so you realize all this, that there is no Santa and that sometimes you make big mistakes or life doesn’t end up being exactly what you thought it would be. And the sadness that comes with that makes the happiness that climbs to the surface anyway – the happiness that comes from the smile on your child’s face or the engulfing, tight hug of the one you love or the antics of a ferret … well, it just makes it all the more miraculous.

Growing up hurts. But sometimes, it isn’t all that bad.