Michael Jackson lied: you ARE alone

Happy Christmas, one and all. Sorry I'm late. It's been a strange few days and I am now trying to help my parents use their three-year-old vinyl-to-mp3 USB turntable, unopened until today, but the software that came with it is so appalling that I challenge its designer to use it without wanting to drag the stylus over his own retina after a handful of seconds. As a sample of the aforementioned crapness, how's this: it installs a handy shortcut icon on your desktop but will double clicking it open the programme? No it will not. How about right clicking and selecting 'Open'? No. How to open the programme? It is impossible - unless you uninstall it and reinstall it from the CD-Rom. Then it works. Oh how handy. I am now listening to Judy Collins' Greatest Hits through the tinny bass-free computer speakers for approx. the sixth time as it has taken several attempts to know if we're recording successfully. My mum is doing sudoku on a sofa a few feet away and keeps absent-mindedly breaking into a tremulous warble before abandoning it, saying, 'Oh, this used to be one of my favourites.'

My latest attempt to record Side B started crackling wildly so I stopped the recording after forty minutes, only to find that there was no record of it on their PC. I have now given up, something I don't find easy but which must be done in order to preserve the functional state of my parents' laptop - the alternative is putting it on the floor and then repeatedly jumping up and down on it in my Fitflop boots until it admits, out loud, that it is at least six thousand times less user-friendly than a Mac.

Vinyl-ripping aside, I have now reached the long-longed-for stage of Winterval where my duties are over. On Christmas Eve the three of us went to the Albert Hall for a carol concert, where we were joined by two of my parents' friends who I've not met before. Seven people came for lunch on the Day Itself, making ten in total. Then yesterday we went to a pub on the river to meet another (much larger) family and then walked back to their house for lunch. It's all been lovely and festive and fun and there have been many laughs, particularly from my dad's ecstatic and near-constant use of his new Britain's Got Talent judges' buzzer, but there's always a sense of relief when all the socialising is over and you know you can don your jeans and your unflattering jumper and not be polite to anyone for the next hundred hours.

But every year, the euphoria fades after around nine minutes and I am soon left feeling listless, yet with a list of things to do and a hangover. This year's list includes a) teaching myself how to transfer vinyl to my parents' PC, a fairly bearable task that pales into heaven beside task b), teaching my parents how to transfer vinyl to their PC, which may as well be labelled Inevitable Armageddon. Since I haven't yet managed to complete stage a), I've been spared stage b), but still feel like I've let the side down. Countless others complaining about the shit software online won't console my parents, who've been gestating this project excitedly for a long time, desperately keen to ditch the records to create valuable storage space for their burgeoning collection of old bedside lamps, blankets and Eighties skiwear. I had also allocated these days to: writing, learning how to use my sewing machine, practicing my ukulele and clearing out my Gmail inbox - a selection of chores that wouldn't be misery-inducing, except that my parents are constantly boiling, fanning themselves dramatically and opening the back door to encourage a through draft, so today I have been wearing Rudolph socks, fur-lined boots, jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, cashmere jumper, scarf, beret and fleece, but have still been freezing since dawn and am unable to do anything except lie around under a blanket and moan gently. I mooted returning to my flat but I think my mother is disappointed. I'd be happy to stay longer except I don't really want to.

Like I say, it's been a strange few days. I love Christmas and on the surface, Winterval 2010 has been splendid, but recent changes within have meant that I'm definitely more aware than I used to be of my solitude - and by that I mean that separateness that exists whether you're with close friends in a crowded room or on your own in an empty flat, a fact that wouldn't be changed by the addition of a boyfriend, twins or a short-haired Dachshund. In the past, I've distracted myself with going out, planning future evenings out, chatting on the phone to people about times I've gone out in the past and times I am planning to go out in the future, writing about going out, fancying boys, or telling myself that I wouldn't be alone forever. Now something massive has shifted and I've accepted that my old denial wasn't getting me anywhere. In some ways, we're all on our own - married with babies or not - and I have to like it or lump it rather than search endlessly for distractions. Such a Copernican shift, intangible though it is, is proving a little tricky. Ideally, I'd learn how to see our psychological isolation as a good thing rather than as ultimate proof that life is a crock. Somehow I have to come to terms with it rather than feeling that I'm being massively negative and buzzkillish - but in this, I don't think I'm alone: I can't imagine that I'm the only person who views the fact of their own psychological solitude with a sense of shame, and the fact of others' with pity. Right now, it seems to me cruel that we are genetically social creatures, and that the furtherance of our species relies on us being physically and emotionally connected at the deepest level, but that, from the moment our existence begins to the moment it ends, we are the only people in our heads and will forever be the only person who lives our life. Hunter S. Thompson had sensible things to say on the subject (below) - I just hope I get there soonish. Maybe Christmas isn't the easiest time to learn:

"We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and - in spite of True Romance magazines - we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely - at least, not all the time - but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness."