Being Alone for the Holidays Isn’t a Failure

The first year I spent the holidays alone, I told people I was “keeping it low-key.”

This was a lie….even though I am naturally an introvert.
What I meant was: I do not have the energy to perform gratitude inside a house where I had learned how to disappear.

What I meant was: I am tired of proving I healed enough to deserve a seat at the table.

What I meant was: I am choosing myself.

And that choice felt terrifying, holy, and free.

There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes with being queer during the holidays — not the cinematic kind with snow falling, sad music swelling. But the quiet administrative loneliness of logistics… Who do I text? Where do I go? What do I wear? What questions do I ask and what answers do I offer that won’t invite pity or interrogation or unsolicited reconciliation advice?

The holidays are a societal structure built around the assumption that everyone has somewhere safe to return to. And if you don’t, you are treated as an exception, a problem to be solved, a charity case to be absorbed into someone else’s tradition like a novelty ornament, a burden.

But what if being alone isn’t a tragedy? What if it’s a refusal?

My relationship to family is complicated in the way that polite conversation doesn’t allow for. I have learned that love, when conditional, is not rest. I have learned that being invited is not the same as being welcomed. I have learned that proximity to harm does not become safe just because it’s decorated with twinkle lights.

So one year, I stayed home… as in, the home I created for myself in Los Angeles.

I bought myself groceries like it was a ceremony, and I treated myself like never before. I cooked something slow, mainly because I was learning to cook (and still am). I didn’t rush anything and I didn’t judge myself. I let the day be quiet without narrating it as sad or having to fill the space of silence with anything. I wore soft clothes (the baggier the better). I cried many times — not because I was alone, but because I was finally not bracing; I was letting myself go.

That’s the part we don’t talk about enough: how exhausting togetherness can be when you are constantly editing yourself for survival. When you care so much about how others see or perceive you, even if they claim to accept and support you.

For queer people — especially queer people of color, trans and gender-nonconforming folks, survivors, estranged folks — the holidays can feel like a performance review of our lives. Are you successful enough? Are you healed enough? Are you partnered enough? Are you palatable enough now? Are you going to have kids? Are you finally getting a “real” job?

Being alone interrupts that script and invites you to create your own.

Aloneness, when chosen, can be a form of care and self-discovery. It can be a room where your nervous system finally unclenches and you get in tune with yourself. It can be a day without pronoun negotiations, without defending your body, your timeline, your boundaries. It can be a meal eaten without commentary or calorie counts. It can be silence that doesn’t ask you to explain yourself or make you feel weird for embracing the quiet moments.

Of course, it’s not always peaceful; in my experience, it rarely is. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes you scroll. Sometimes you feel the ache of what you wish had been possible. Sometimes you grieve the version of family you were promised but never received. Sometimes you crave that family and look for it in places you shouldn’t.

But grief and failure are not the same thing; they’re not even close to each other.

Being alone for the holidays does not mean you are unlovable. It does not mean you have been left behind. It does not mean you did something wrong. Sometimes it means you finally did something right.

Queer culture has taught me the power of chosen family, but it has also taught me something quieter and just as important: Sometimes the family you choose is yourself. Sometimes the most radical act is not forcing a community where it cannot hold you.

There is a pressure — especially in queer spaces — to always transmute pain into connection. To turn every hard thing into a potluck, a group chat, a Friendsgiving photo. And while I love that for us, I also want to name the other truth: Not everyone has the capacity to build or maintain a community every year. Not everyone is in a season of gathering. Rest is not antisocial. Solitude is not a moral failure.

This year, if you are alone for the holidays, I want you to know you are not missing the point. You are not broken. You are not behind. You are not doing the holidays “wrong.”

You are surviving a culture that equates worth with visibility and family with obligation.

You are listening to your body.

You are allowed to opt out.

Light a candle or don’t. Cook a feast or eat cereal for dinner. Watch something terrible. Go to bed early. Let the day pass without trying to redeem it. And if you feel lonely, let that be true, too, without turning it into a verdict on your life. Aloneness can be a season. It can be a shelter. It can be a boundary wrapped in quiet.

Sometimes the most loving place to be during the holidays is exactly where you are — alone, breathing, and no longer pretending.