Single During the Holidays: A Story About Loneliness and Pie
A quiet Thanksgiving morning, a cold side of the bed, and a pie I made instead of disappearing. A soft, cinematic reflection on being single during the holidays.
Waking up Single on A Holiday Morning
I wake up alone on Thanksgiving morning with sunlight streaming through the gold curtains, the wind whistling me awake as the panes of my window rattle. The holidays are officially here, arriving like an unwanted guest. My eyes flutter to the other side of the bed, like a camera lens focusing, where my stuffed monkey lies in the place I thought somebody else would have been by now.
I imagine a man’s eyes looking back at me, cracking a smile, and the image fades into the back of my mind as I turn over in the comforter. The weight of the world settles into the crevices of my shoulders as I will myself out of bed.
I make myself an iced coffee and do a sheet mask. The ache settles into my chest as I settle into the morning. It’s made a home in my chest’s cavity— been there so long it has eyes and looks up at me as I move quietly through the apartment with my mug of coffee.
The apartment is still, serene, and the curtains in the living room look lit aflame by the sun. I make my way into the kitchen — the same kitchen I spent all night in, baking a pie and making coquito for Thanksgiving dinner with my family.
Sweet potato Pie and A Lace Blouse: Finding softness while single during the holidays
The pie is waiting for me in the refrigerator, made from roasted sweet potatoes and lots of cream. Love and hard work are baked into the crust, the filling glossy as I unwrap it and place it on the counter. It looks perfect, and I realize I made something instead of disappearing — disappearing into the winter season, not coming out of my room until spring, or until the Christmas carols stop playing and life moves on into a new year, a new season that doesn’t demand joy like the holidays do.
I’m still tired from spending the entire night baking, so I finish my skincare ritual and take a nap. The ache lies beside me like a pet. With intent eyes, it waits for me to wake up and notice it and the empty space in the bed next to mine. The holidays makes the ache blister, which I write about in this post about holiday sadness.
If I’m not careful, the ache festers so I wake up and get dressed instead — in a silk lace blouse that covers the invisible parts of me, the parts still raw from a hard year. The sleeves billow out, an ode to the 1970s, and the fabric is delicate and soft against my skin. The way I try to be, soft and delicate, after carrying the world for years with a storm cloud following me everywhere I went. I move slowly, almost like I’m getting dressed for someone, even though no one is waiting.
I hide my sadness behind big hair and lip gloss, building a softer version of myself in the mirror — the kind of girl who looks like she belongs in warm rooms and soft lighting, maybe a girl someone might marry one day.
I wear my newly thrifted wool kilt with a pair of sheer stockings. The outfit is romantic and old-fashioned, like something lifted from a forgotten photograph. I fill in my eyebrows and swipe on lipstick. My face is made so the tears won’t fall; my makeup armor when I feel too heavy to come undone. My fingers trace the clasp of my pearl choker, fastening it slowly, letting it rest at the hollow of my throat. I put on the matching earrings and watch them catch the light when I turn my head. For a second, I look like someone else.
Someone softer. Someone who floats into rooms and belongs, who doesn’t fight for a place at the table or apologize for her existence. Someone who carries grace instead of the strength the world teaches you to bear. Someone lighter. Someone made of gold.
She feels distant, like she belongs to another version of my life. I blink, and she fades slightly, but I keep her with me anyway.
Football is playing on the flat screen TV when I walk into my aunt and uncle’s living room. I’m balancing the pie and my purse, cradling it against the fur of my coat like it’s something precious. If I’m honest, I can’t wait for people to taste the pie. As my uncle finalizes the Turkey that’s been baking in their oven since morning and pushes caramelized onions in a gravy broth with a wooden spoon on the stovetop, I make fresh whipped cream with real maple syrup and heavy cream. It’s to go with the pie.
Thanksgiving dinner and being the single cousin during the holidays
We break bread at 4 p.m., and I sit at the end of the table, all of us squeezed around folding tables in my aunt’s small basement. I am silent and blink at the TV where my brother and cousins are on a Zoom call. They aren’t able to join us in person. One aunt gushes over my brother’s handsomeness while another wonders aloud when he will find a wife. I shift in my seat, my stomach feeling hollow. It stings because we are fourteen months apart.
I watch my younger cousin and her boyfriend pressed close together at the table, while my older cousins sit beside me on opposite sides with their partners. There’s a particular ache to being single on Thanksgiving, a quiet kind of loneliness that settles in the spaces no one else notices. I wonder if anyone thinks about when I might get married. I wonder if I will ever get married at all. Maybe the holidays feel lonely sometimes — not because of the lack of people, but the lack of someone who sees you completely. And someone who can do the tango with you in the kitchen as food cooks.
I pile my plate with turkey, rice, and corn pudding. My pie sits in the corner of the kitchen with the other desserts, covered in foil, quiet and untouched. It’s waiting for dessert time which will come after the family’s white elephant game. I look at the curve of the pyrex dish and the soft dent in the foil and wonder if love can be tasted before it’s seen.
Something stirs in my chest when I think about the night before. Hope, maybe? Being lonely and single, it would have been too easy to give in to cynicism, but I chose to bake to bring in much needed holiday cheer instead of swatting it away in anger. I found love in pie even while still single for the holidays.
choosing love and myself through sweet potato pie
If I could not be chosen, I would choose myself and the work of my hands. I would sink my fingers into the loosened skin of the sweet potatoes, still warm, steam rising from the bright orange flesh as it gave way and dropped into the waiting bowl. I would watch it fall apart under the pressure of my potato masher, turning to silk, obedient as it took on cinnamon, nutmeg, and Chinese ginger, like it had been waiting for them all along. After being blended, it would wait to be poured carefully into the pie crust — the same way I wait for love, catching glances in public places, hoping someone would stop long enough to notice me. And this is what I did. I chose pie and I chose myself.
The filling poured slowly into the crust, thick and spiced, orange and heavy like paint, pooling in the center and spreading to the edges. Then, into the oven it went. I stood close enough to feel the oven’s heat bloom against my skin, too warm in my favorite sweater, my palms and forehead slick with sweat after a long night’s work. As the pie baked, the tiny kitchen filled with cinnamon and sugar and something softer, something almost magical — a miracle on Thanksgiving Eve, when it would have been easier to go to bed and hide beneath the covers.
I also made coquito, Spanish for “little coconut,” the Puerto Rican eggnog that makes its way into every Puerto Rican home in New York during the holidays. The coconut cream gave the drink a body as soft as folded silk, thick and pale and slow to move, leaving its shadow behind on the edges of the glass after a hearty sip.
Maybe this is how I coped with being single during the holidays — choosing something warm, something beautiful, something that reminds me I’m still here. Love that isn’t felt in hugs and kisses, but in choosing not to abandon myself when it would be easier to disappear. Choosing to make something beautiful — a pie, a drink, a moment — instead of believing the quiet lie that I’m unworthy of being loved, or chosen, or seen. And maybe one day a ring will find its way onto my left hand, gentle and certain, but for now I choose pie and sharing it with family.
