Christmas is one of my favorite times of year, I love the festive atmosphere every where you go, all the lights and trees trimmed like they fell out of a glossy magazine and all of the time with family and friends. I mean I could listen to Christmas music all year round and would have no problem with having 3 stat holidays every month, am I alone on this?
There are so many reasons to love the season but the past few years have been hard and I tend to have moments when it’s just not the most wonderful time of the year after all.
Everyone suffers loss in many forms so I know I’m not alone and many of you are probably dealing with some sort or loss or heartbreak right now. What I’m having a hard time with is how I never know when I’m going to break.
Grief is funny and can sneak up and punch you in the face at one of the best moments of your life or it can crawl into bed with you and your bucket of popcorn as you watch Love Actually for the 95th time.
This year grief seems to be squeezing my heart at every turn. It doesn’t matter where I am or what I do there seems to be a memory around every corner and a sadness that I just can’t break free of.
This Christmas will be my first without my childhood BFF who we lost to cancer a couple of months ago. She was the sister I never had and the light at the end of every dark tunnel. Losing her has hit hard. Especially after losing 2 others earlier this year to the same disease that has been a bit of a plague for my family and friends over the past few years. I know everyone has been touched by it and I’m not at all in a unique situation but sometimes it’s really hard to see life going on around me when I feel like it stopped with their last breath. I feel helpless and alone watching all of the hustle and bustle around me, I hear laughter and music but it’s all a blur that I feel like I should be able to get caught up in but I can’t.
I try to keep it together and for the most part I succeed, the boy hasn’t noticed anything different and seems to think I’m just giving him more freedom, something he’s asked for for a while now. Today I was supposed to hang out at a party with him at his friends place but I told him I’d just go run some errands first and come back. I didn’t have a party in me today and thought I’d use the opportunity to distract myself with last minute holiday preparations. I spent an hour sitting in my car listening to the rain unable to make the tears stop.
Everyone suffers loss and deals with it in their own way and I know the holidays are hard for many of you guys too.
My point to all of this rambling is, I’ve seen and heard a lot of negativity and arguing over the past few weeks every time I’ve ventured out. It can be a stressful time for so many reasons I get that but it’s no excuse to be a jerk.
I want everyone to remember that you don’t know what people around you are dealing with. Behind the smile or the Instagram highlight reel there could be some really intense things going on.
Be kind.
