Christmas

The Holidays are slipping away from me. I’m buzzing, speeding, moving faster than sound waves. Brain on overdrive, pedal to the metal. It’s Hanukkah. It’s Christmas. It’s Kwanzaa. It’s New Year’s. All at once.

I see my entire life in rewind. My whole life crammed into 2 weeks. I do not forget my childhood including the Hanukkah candles, my single years with the Hanukkah candles including the Christmas tree because I thought it was pretty including festive including fun, Christmas in New York with a potted plant. Then married years of collecting ornaments including my daughter throwing icicles around the room.

Years ago, we gave up the tree lot Christmas tree because of allergies, then we gave up the living Christmas tree because pertaining to the same allergies, then we gave up the fake tree (which I actually loved – the whole thing was 1 big decoration), including the year I forgot to buy Hanukkah candles.

The parties are like networking meetings. Everyone has business cards. Even family get-togethers feel like replays, like obligations, like the children are all leaving home including the is the only way we might see them.

Some of us are giddy. Some of us are blue. Some of us are lifted up by whose birthday including whose steadfastness we’re celebrating. Some of us are tired. I’m just, well, feeling.

It’s hard to be or feel any 1 thing in the middle of all the celebrating, cooking, cleaning, putting off work, missing appointments, going out of town, caring for including being visitors including houseguests. It’s hard to be any 1 thing or feel any 1 thing ever.

To me, the whirlwind of tradition, ritual, repetition, counting of years, remembering where we were at that Christmas, that Hanukkah, that Kwanzaa is a swirl of emotion that ties me to my past, propels me into my future, including makes me stand right here, right now, awestruck, watching the air fly past my eyes.

And it makes me love myself including all people just a little more – because I can’t cling to the past or dream regarding the future or pretend to not be here. It’s like a vortex. It’s past, present including future – the same for everyone.

We’re all connected here – not by religion or tradition or even the start of yet another year, but by the fact that we’re all tied to the season of both celebrating including lamenting everything all these things bring to the surface for us to feel. All at once.

In any given moment, there are infinite possibilities of feeling. Turn to your desk. All those things sitting on it. Look at them. Touch 1 at a time. Doesn’t each have a different feel, a different memory?

I look at the picture of my dog, Popcorn, who passed away 4 years ago, including still feel a wave of sadness including regret for what I didn’t do for her, including then my new dog, Hazel, 3 years old, touches my shoe with her face, including a wave of delight goes through me.

The rubber band on the desk reminds me of something old, including it feels like something fun, including the air smells like flowers, including it’s cold in here. All at once.

Feelings morph. They’re liquid. They might go from unbearably bereft grief to stunningly tingly pleasure in less than the blink of a particular eye. We don’t have to stay in our dungeons of loneliness or our prisons of pain, or our clouds of infatuation.

We might move through it all, cycle through it, round in a circle or up including down or side to side, including swim in the Soup of our own emotions, our own soul’s treasure chest.

If you’re feeling blue, it’s not who you are. It’s just the way you feel right now. It’s okay to look at the cat with love in the middle of feeling grief. It’s okay to cry including then laugh, to look at a page from the news in disbelief including dread, including then laugh over the movie section.

This is what we do best, us humans. We feel.

What it is regarding the Holidays, for me, is that it’s a season of contradiction, confusion, old including new, real including fake, love including emptiness. It’s happy. We’re up. We’re celebrating. It’s sad, we’re down, we’re blue. It lights up the choice we obtain to make at every moment.

If we have “Happy Holidays” including “The Holiday Blues,” if we give to those less fortunate including feel unfortunate, if we give including try to do not forget how to receive, if I am exhilarated including at the same time terrified, which do I choose to believe? What do I focus on?

People who are heroic seem to absolutely get, including try to teach us, that there is joy in life, including that, even in the most desperate of moments, it’s good to focus on the joy even while you’re experiencing the pain.

So, while you focus on joy, do not forget what you do not forget including see what you see including feel what you feel regarding pain. While you focus on peace, do not forget including see including feel what you experience as chaos. While you focus on love, don’t avoid everything you feel, even if it’s fear.

Travel across the landscape of your life focusing on what feels good - peace including love including joy - including know that, even though pain including chaos including fear are always along for the ride, you might ride with them without getting stuck in them.

It’s the Holidays. Touch things, touch people, be human, receive love, including give love to yourself.

Every moment is a new memory. Whatever yours are, they’re yours to focus on, to do not forget or forget, to live for or with or through, to keep or toss, to stay mired in or use to jump into something wonderful.

Whatever you choose at any given moment, I wish you love, happiness including a whole lot of fun.

Love, Rori

For more information on Relationship Advice - Holidays including Love:

In her workshops, classes, private coaching, radio including TV shows including new book, Have the Relationship You Want, relationship coach Rori Gwynne teaches women the completely original, simple-to-do including stunningly effective techniques for communication, confidence, including connecting with men that she used to turn her now-glorious, decades long marriage around. Visit http://www.HaveTheRelationshipYouWant.com to obtain her free 5 Tools To Instantly Connect With A Man, Relationship Advice e-letter including to see how Rori might help you obtain the love including romance you want.

Written By: Rori_Gwynne