It's funny (not funny ha ha), how so many of us have heavy hearts this Christmas.
Mourning the loss of someone, or something... A spouse, a daughter, a father.. A job, an opportunity, a relationship with a friend... The loss of a moment, a thing, a person...
For some, it's a quiet, tempered kind of mourning. Something they've lived with for a while, grown accustomed to. A mourning that has always been there, lingering in the corners of their life, that just kind of grows a little bigger around the holidays. For others, it's new, and tragic, and terrible, the loss of someone (or something) they love, right before the holidays, changing the way they feel about this season for the rest of their lives..
Heavy hearts this Christmas, and every Christmas, for so many...
I'm not going to write about how to "fix" it. I have no advice, no words of wisdom or hope. I'm not going to write about how to approach the holidays with a different outlook, a happier heart, a sense of faith or gratitude or healing or joy. Because I don't know how. I don't know how to write about it, and I certainly don't know how to actually do it. I wouldn't know the first step, let alone, how to complete the task.
Besides, you can find those words of hope and healing and joy in just about every article floating around the internet right now. Go read one of those, cause I got nuthin'.
I'm a member of the holiday heavy hearts club, for my own reasons. Even if I didn't have "reasons", I think I'd still be a member. The holidays cause me to be so melancholy..
The holidays are never the same when you've lost a loved one. Especially someone close to you; a parent, a child, a spouse... I miss my father. He loved Christmas, even if he was a grouch. He loved to buy for my mother. Even if it was something he shopped for on Christmas eve at Rite Aid. Sometimes it was something he planned well in advance. He could be very creative, that one. Sometimes it was something extravagant and way outside of their budget... Like the time he brought home a new car on Valentine's day, and Mom made him take it back. He was a funny one..
And I miss him so. Every day.
And then I think of my cousin Rebecca. Only 42 years old. My age. Gone, just like that, five days before Christmas. I think of her children, her husband, her mother.. She was such a wonderful soul. A beautiful woman, inside and out. Strong, lovely, smart, creative, spirited.. So unfair. Rebecca lost her 21 year old son Nick this summer to a car accident. How much tragedy that family has already suffered, and now Rebecca.. taken by a heart attack at 42. Five. friggin. days. before Christmas.
I will never understand the cruelty that this life possesses. I hear people suggest that everyone has an appointed time, everyone gets called at some point, God has a plan, life has a plan, bla bla friggin bla... Yeah, well I call bullshit. It's not some master plan. It's life. And it's goddamn friggin cruel.
And I think of my sister. How she was my best friend. I mean, truly. How we haven't spoken in nearly two years. Aside from her, I have perhaps two close friends. But even those women I talk to infrequently, and rarely see. My sister was my first (and closest) best friend.. well, after she grew up and stopped being a pain in my ass. My mother is always asking me to affect a change. Make amends. And perhaps I could. Or perhaps it wouldn't be effective at all, even if I tried. Perhaps, this is our future, my sister's and mine. Perhaps some day I will stop being stubborn, and find out. Some day. Perhaps.
And I think of the life I'm living. How different it is from the life I was living. Or, how different it is from the life I expected, rather. And it's mine, this life. So one would think, and even advise- it is your life, you have the power to change it, make it the life you expected... But.. How? I don't believe in fate, I don't believe that anything is predetermined. But I do feel that much of it is beyond my control. How ironic.
But, to the contrary, much of my life has been largely born out of personal choice.
Always questioned, never sure of, often regretting, constantly wondering.. But, personal choice. And what good is personal choice, when you're simply never sure?
Sigh.
Ahhhh... The Christmas funk, the Christmas crash, and then the New Years blues...
I will be glad when this particular time of year has passed.
Mourning the loss of someone, or something... A spouse, a daughter, a father.. A job, an opportunity, a relationship with a friend... The loss of a moment, a thing, a person...
For some, it's a quiet, tempered kind of mourning. Something they've lived with for a while, grown accustomed to. A mourning that has always been there, lingering in the corners of their life, that just kind of grows a little bigger around the holidays. For others, it's new, and tragic, and terrible, the loss of someone (or something) they love, right before the holidays, changing the way they feel about this season for the rest of their lives..
Heavy hearts this Christmas, and every Christmas, for so many...
I'm not going to write about how to "fix" it. I have no advice, no words of wisdom or hope. I'm not going to write about how to approach the holidays with a different outlook, a happier heart, a sense of faith or gratitude or healing or joy. Because I don't know how. I don't know how to write about it, and I certainly don't know how to actually do it. I wouldn't know the first step, let alone, how to complete the task.
Besides, you can find those words of hope and healing and joy in just about every article floating around the internet right now. Go read one of those, cause I got nuthin'.
I'm a member of the holiday heavy hearts club, for my own reasons. Even if I didn't have "reasons", I think I'd still be a member. The holidays cause me to be so melancholy..
The holidays are never the same when you've lost a loved one. Especially someone close to you; a parent, a child, a spouse... I miss my father. He loved Christmas, even if he was a grouch. He loved to buy for my mother. Even if it was something he shopped for on Christmas eve at Rite Aid. Sometimes it was something he planned well in advance. He could be very creative, that one. Sometimes it was something extravagant and way outside of their budget... Like the time he brought home a new car on Valentine's day, and Mom made him take it back. He was a funny one..
And I miss him so. Every day.
And then I think of my cousin Rebecca. Only 42 years old. My age. Gone, just like that, five days before Christmas. I think of her children, her husband, her mother.. She was such a wonderful soul. A beautiful woman, inside and out. Strong, lovely, smart, creative, spirited.. So unfair. Rebecca lost her 21 year old son Nick this summer to a car accident. How much tragedy that family has already suffered, and now Rebecca.. taken by a heart attack at 42. Five. friggin. days. before Christmas.
I will never understand the cruelty that this life possesses. I hear people suggest that everyone has an appointed time, everyone gets called at some point, God has a plan, life has a plan, bla bla friggin bla... Yeah, well I call bullshit. It's not some master plan. It's life. And it's goddamn friggin cruel.
And I think of my sister. How she was my best friend. I mean, truly. How we haven't spoken in nearly two years. Aside from her, I have perhaps two close friends. But even those women I talk to infrequently, and rarely see. My sister was my first (and closest) best friend.. well, after she grew up and stopped being a pain in my ass. My mother is always asking me to affect a change. Make amends. And perhaps I could. Or perhaps it wouldn't be effective at all, even if I tried. Perhaps, this is our future, my sister's and mine. Perhaps some day I will stop being stubborn, and find out. Some day. Perhaps.
And I think of the life I'm living. How different it is from the life I was living. Or, how different it is from the life I expected, rather. And it's mine, this life. So one would think, and even advise- it is your life, you have the power to change it, make it the life you expected... But.. How? I don't believe in fate, I don't believe that anything is predetermined. But I do feel that much of it is beyond my control. How ironic.
But, to the contrary, much of my life has been largely born out of personal choice.
Always questioned, never sure of, often regretting, constantly wondering.. But, personal choice. And what good is personal choice, when you're simply never sure?
Sigh.
Ahhhh... The Christmas funk, the Christmas crash, and then the New Years blues...
I will be glad when this particular time of year has passed.