This last statement has made me feel silly/ridiculous. Not helpful
Really?
So it has not made you realise that you are your own worst enemy as you are putting important occasions ahead of making the leap and there will never be a right time. Either you want to go or you don't.
If you wait for Christmas, there will always be the next birthday, family occasion, Easter, school holiday to wait for.
Of course you are angry because that's a scary thought, you might never leave.
My mum made the same excuses to me. In actual fact this was a statement made to excuse her from making a change she wasn't ready to make before then. She didn't want to believe she was not strong enough, she saw staying as a weakness so looked for for excuses that were beyond her control.
At one point it dawned on me that's what it was really about so I asked her, she went quiet and realised this was what she was making up a succession of excuses to protect her own image of herself.
I reassured her it was ok to need to take time to be ready to change things, it was natural and not weak. She's never since blamed not going sooner on waiting for me to finish school, which was her final reason to buy her years to be ready but hurt me as an adult as I blamed myself for getting in the way of her finding her freedom sooner. 