Holiday Reflections

Well…
It’s that time of year again.
Cold outside, everything frozen, people rushing from their cars to wherever they need to go…
The longest day of the year over and the promise of more light just ahead of us…
Christmas and my birthday right around the corner…
A new year to begin soon…

And life is really good.
Taylor’s workin’ steady at a job he likes. Money is a little less tight than it has been. The house is full to bustin’ but we’re making do until we can move in spring. We’re getting married in June. We have a trip coming up in February to marry our friends Brian and kitten. Looks like we’re going to get my car fixed up soon – which will ease a lot of the stress of being stuck in the house and not being able to get Sandi where she needs to go.

But most of all…
It’s just that time of year.
And I love Christmas. I love New Years. Not so much the New Year celebrations, though we always have fun, but just the idea of it being a new year. It’s like a fresh start, a definitive line in my mind, a chance to put aside the crap of last year, ponder on and enjoy the good stuff and start anew with trying to balance out another year. Hopefully tipping the scales with more good than bad, but a balance of both is ok. Afterall, that’s life, right? :)

Christmas is…
Family. Friends. Even the stress of shopping and decorating and running to and fro is enjoyable to me. Cuz it’s all done in a certain spirit that just doesn’t hit me any other time of year.
Maybe it has something to do with my birthday being on Christmas Eve. All the important days of the year, for me, fall within a week or so of each other. Taylor and I get another year older, the family gathers for Christmas, the calendar year changes…

But it really doesn’t come down to celebrations or parties or anything. It comes down to the way I feel inside. I feel good. I feal peaceful. I feel happy. Another year is wrapping up and I can look back and be happy with who I am and how far I’ve come and where I’m going. And I pretty much feel like that every year. (‘Cept the year I turned 30. That one was bad. Not just the age but everything. It all sucked. Gods, I was miserable. But I learned and moved on and made my life better. That’s all we can do, really. That or stay miserable. And when we do that the misery just grows, year after year, culminating in the eighteen million or so suicides that happen during the Holidays every year)

Ugh… got a little off topic there….

So…
Yeah…
I feel pretty good.
There are things that could be better. But I believe they will be. And THAT is the power of the Holidays for me – settling in to what “is”, coming to terms with what I can and can’t change, and looking forward to what will be.

Friends, family, warmth and love – no matter how the world blusters outside.

Happy Holidays, everyone. :)