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Thank You For Being Here
Thank you for being you.
The holidays are a mixed bag. For some, this is a happy, joyful, amazing time. But for others, it’s a sad, unhappy, awful time. Your mileage may vary.
I can relate to the discomfort many experience this time of year. As a child, I grew up as a non-Christian minority (my family is Jewish) in a very Lutheran area. Coupled with that, I was also the only one who had divorced parents, one of whom lived halfway across the country.
Then, because that wasn’t entertaining enough, when I got severely injured in 1999, I spent the month of December in a rehab hospital. The nurses’ station had a radio on all the time, and it only tuned into one channel — so I was bombarded by never-ending Christmas music.
This year has been additionally rough because it is the first year my wife and her family are without her mother. Suffice it to say, the holiday spirit is proving elusive for everyone.
This can cause you to feel ostracized, disconnected, and like you are somehow wrong. All the messages say you’re supposed to be happy and connected and more. So what if you aren’t?
It’s okay to not be okay. You’re allowed to be unhappy, to feel disconnected, to not be in the spirit of the season.
