The big difference between last year and this year are the personal tragedies that my family and I endured. Along with the heart stents in September, my mother also died shortly before Thanksgiving. Having these back to back devastating events was certainly a challenge for me.
As I've said before, our family doesn't celebrate Christmas anymore. It's not that we're against celebrating it, but celebrating it traditionally for either supernatural reasons or capitalistic reasons just doesn't make any sense for us. Our current philosophy is that you should love your family all year long and gift them whenever you feel moved. We don't feel like we should buy into what other people have determined is appropriate for us. We make our own rules and screw what other people think.
This holiday season is a little different in that my mother is no longer alive, but even her not being here hasn't really changed my attitude towards how we celebrate this time off. Honestly, I think the only thing that has really reached into my insides is the most recent tragedy, the Sandy Hook shootings.
When children are involved in horrific acts, it always tears me in new places that I didn't think existed. The emotions I feel seem to just endlessly spring up and don't stop coming. They will eventually, but it is something that never ceases to amaze me. I feel such a deep ache that just brings my well-being down to a place I'm not accustomed to.
After that happened, sleep took on a whole new look. What used to resemble normal just isn't anymore. Thinking that hot flashes in the middle of the night would be the only thing disturbing didn't prepare me for the lack of sleep nor the dreams I started experiencing. Nighttime has recently become a whole new level of disturbing. It seems that working out the mysteries of life that I'm encountering is what I can expect until I reach a level of understanding about things that I've never had before.
I've also reached out to my friends in a way I'd not done before. Lack of sleep may have added to my motivation, but I needed reassurance that there was still some sanity in the world; a grounded element, so to speak. That element I needed help from helped me still find some humanity and, in turn, it made me feel a lot less wonky again.
My personal series of events and then external events have left me with so many emotions and feelings that I literally have been in tears, outwardly and internally, for what seems forever. I don't like the place it put me in, but surprisingly, I also see the joy at the end of those emotions. My feelings for my family have immediately gotten deeper. My friends, although always important to me, are even more important to me now and the tragedies that others experience touch me in a deeper place. I feel a need to be a kinder person like I've never experienced before. I want the love that I feel inside to be even more present in my interactions with every person's path I cross. I see the changes that I make in my life now creating a little more peace in my days ahead.
It's been a dramatic year for me, to say the least, but I think that it's also been one of the best years I could have had. I've/we've been through a lot, but the lessons learned have been just wow! Changing one thing about this year would have made the lessons less impactful in my life.
This year ends on a high note DESPITE all the shit. :) May it only get better from here on out!
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