Merry Christmas to you.
What a weird one. It was Christmas, but it also wasn't. For the obvious reasons. But I think it was also due to the fact that I've carried a bizarre mixture of relief, comfort, and sadness through this whole season. Relief that we're all safe and healthy. Comfortable at home. Sad, sad, sad over all we've missed and all this world has lost since last Christmas. Sigh.
We are the lucky ones. We're doing fine. We don't have to risk our lives on a daily basis. My whole family had gifts under the tree and stuffed in their stockings, and festive cookies on their counters. And yet....there were big, hug-shaped, glass-clinking, plate-sharing holes riddled throughout our December. We watched all the right movies and carried on all of our usual traditions and yet - and yet. It hurts.
We woke up to a white Christmas and a glowing sky this morning. The boys and I have been wishing and hoping for weeks, and were gifted with a picture perfect Christmas morning scene. There's a storm brewing over Lake Erie as we speak that promises many more inches, and as we await a winter fury, we are content in our new slippers and pajamas - armed with hot cocoa bombs and the ingredients for a big pot of soup. Books and puzzles await. We are safe, we are loved, we are lucky.
Sigh, but this sadness.
Not just sadness, but the guilt I have over it. We had all the same things we usually do. I saw all the same faces. Most of them I only saw through a screen, but I saw them. We exchanged gifts at the times we usually would have (just not in the same room). We wished each other well with our own voices and smiles (though without hugs to go with it). I'm not even an extrovert! I'm certainly not a hugger. And yet, and yet, and yet.
I am usually exhausted by business-as-usual life. I've found a lot of rest and power in quarantine. But as this year has unfolded, I've felt an increasingly sharper sting over not sharing an energetic field with the major players in my life. (The ones that live outside of my home, anyway.) And I have certainly, certainly gained an appreciation for their importance in my story. My soul is missing theirs - more than I ever thought it could.
So I'm sitting here with absolutely everything I need, and most of what I want. Everything. Even with a storm brewing outside my window and a pandemic floating through my community. But it's Christmas, and my heart is missing something.
Over the last six weeks (because, you know, Christmas is in our veins) I've wondered why I couldn't be bothered to record more of our holiday. I still took videos with my big camera - snippets of our humble Christmasing that will soon be compiled into a long, annual family video. But the rest of it? I didn't post on Instagram. Stories were rare. I shared nothing on Facebook. And it's not that I have to - it's that I've always enjoyed it. I still loved our celebrations this year. I just didn't feel like sharing. But why?
Because I'm out of practice? Because without the holiday shopping trips and exhausting class parties it never really felt like the Christmas season came? Because without people to physically spend time with in person, the ones on the internet feel less real, too? I don't know. And I'd keep telling myself, "you're going to regret not documenting this!" I still just couldn't.
Maybe it's all those reasons, or even something I'm not thinking of. All I know is - whatever I've been able to get through and roll with and handle since March apparently does not apply to Christmas.
I'm not even upset, or wanting for anything. There's just this underlying, vibrational lack. And as safe and comfortable and beautiful as it's all been, I hope that by next year, I can remember what it feels like to just be with other beings again. To share on a grander scale. And I wish that for all of you, too.
Love to you all. xo
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