Slices of Life
There will be a year
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The holidays are meant to be a joyous and celebratory time for the masses.
We jingle and we jangle. We carol and we herald. We send cards and decorate yards. We prep and we wrap. We elf on the shelf. We deck the halls and trim the tree with ornate balls. Our nights are bright with festive lights. We present presents. We travel to homes of loved ones to be reminded why we see them but once a year.
We celebrate a jolly elf in a Santa suit. We celebrate a baby born in a manger, swaddling clothes covering his birthday suit.
And then there are the cookies! So many, many cookies.
All this sounds giddy and fun, because most of it is.
Until it isn’t. Until you face The Year. The year where everything has changed and somehow the glitter of the season just isn’t shining as brightly as it used to. It may not even be shining at all. The year where grief overshadows the holiday hoopla and you decide, sadly, to simply sit this one out.
It will happen to too many of us. Maybe it already has happened to you. I hope not.
Let me be the first to tell you: it’s okay to sit this one out. It’s okay to sit the next one out and the next and how ever many you need until you feel ready again.
It’s okay to take a break from the jolly to heal, because that is exactly what you are doing and what you need to do for yourself, right now.
There will be a year when you can’t send out cards, or your usual holiday letter, because it is too painful.
There will be a year when you simply can’t gather the stamina it takes to wrap presents, even though yours used to be the prettiest in the room.
There will be a year when the pain is so great that you can’t bring yourself to embrace the joy and the miracles of the season that everyone (everyone else!) seems so giddy about.
There will be a year, or even plural years and that is okay. Let me repeat. It is okay. Your response to your circumstances is okay. You, my friend, are doing your very best with the hand you have been dealt.
If you can’t complete the normal holiday festivities, give yourself grace. If you can’t roast the turkey or host the event or even attend the event – it is okay.
Try your best. You may not be able to stay the whole day, but perhaps you can make it through an hour or two. Give yourself permission to do whatever you can. And then tell yourself you are doing great because you did the best you could.
Because for all of us, or most of us at least, there will be a year.
And that is okay, or I hope you realize it will be okay, because when you are at the very bottom, there is only one way to go, and that is up.
Because after the really bad, on the bottom year, there will be a following year, when you see a light at the end of the tunnel. There will be a year when things seem a little bit easier – and brighter. There will be a year when your light shines again.
There will be a year when life seems fresh again. New. Fun. And you will look back and be glad for where you are now, while appreciating what you went through then.
Because the years and the tides come and go and ebb and flow. And so do you. You rise and fall and then rise again – because you are a survivor.
This is your year to shine.
Jill Pertler is an award-winning syndicated columnist, published playwright and author. Don’t miss a slice; follow the Slices of Life page on Facebook.
