Un-Merry Christmas
I have been struggling these last few days, since I got “home.” I fully acknowledge and accept the fact that the Holidays are tough and rough for me. Every year that difficulty manifests itself in new ways. I miss my mom. I want my own children and husband to build with. My family is jacked up. Many people in my family don’t love me right and I straight up don’t like. These things become pressing around the Holidays and it makes my heart sick.
I came home for the Holidays because I was craving quality time with my loved ones. But I was brutally reminded that though I adore my family, many of them are incapable and/or unwilling to love me right, gently, correctly and how I deserved and wished to be loved. I realize that the Holidays in my family has become fanfare. Stress. Huge dinners. Void of love. Certainly void of Jesus. That is hard for me. I feel more alone around the ones who I look like, than I do when I am over-ruled by my solitude. I am often tremendously disappointed when I come home, particularly for the Holidays, because my expectations are seldom met. I spend time with people, but the quality of that time is poor. I am genuinely unfulfilled here. It is harder for me to keep my peace, my centered-ness, wellness and my smile- but I am trying. Many of my kin represent who and what I do not want to become: absentee, abrasive, defensive, cold, mean, selfish, Un-Godly, shallow etc...Loving them inadvertently forces me to work on myself and love myself all the more.
But there are good things here. And I hold on to that. I hold on particularly to my chosen family. The friends that have seen me through tremendous and painful stages in my life. My circle who validate my feelings. And honor my time. My loved ones who choose to love me and not because they think they have to. I am tremendously grateful for them. The people who do not take who and what I am to them for granted. The ones who know I will remain by their side but love me and are intentional about making time for me, as though I won’t.
With just a few days in this year, of course I am reflective, nostalgic and pensive. I own the fact that I just don’t “fit in” with many of my loved ones. I have outgrown monotony, course talk, and routine. I crave for real talk, vulnerability, real emotions, genuine unconditional love-- a good time. I accept the fact that the fulfillment that I seek and the void that often plagues my heart, cannot be filled by the people that I would expect should fill them. And that is okay. I respect where I am.
I honor the fact that I am different. That in losing the heart of my family, I have created a beautiful one of my own. I have made a vow to myself to never go against myself in order to do what is conventional and expected, particular during the Holiday season, simply to appease.
May I never have an Un-Merry Christmas or an Unhappy Birthday again, in the name of family.
I came home for the Holidays because I was craving quality time with my loved ones. But I was brutally reminded that though I adore my family, many of them are incapable and/or unwilling to love me right, gently, correctly and how I deserved and wished to be loved. I realize that the Holidays in my family has become fanfare. Stress. Huge dinners. Void of love. Certainly void of Jesus. That is hard for me. I feel more alone around the ones who I look like, than I do when I am over-ruled by my solitude. I am often tremendously disappointed when I come home, particularly for the Holidays, because my expectations are seldom met. I spend time with people, but the quality of that time is poor. I am genuinely unfulfilled here. It is harder for me to keep my peace, my centered-ness, wellness and my smile- but I am trying. Many of my kin represent who and what I do not want to become: absentee, abrasive, defensive, cold, mean, selfish, Un-Godly, shallow etc...Loving them inadvertently forces me to work on myself and love myself all the more.
But there are good things here. And I hold on to that. I hold on particularly to my chosen family. The friends that have seen me through tremendous and painful stages in my life. My circle who validate my feelings. And honor my time. My loved ones who choose to love me and not because they think they have to. I am tremendously grateful for them. The people who do not take who and what I am to them for granted. The ones who know I will remain by their side but love me and are intentional about making time for me, as though I won’t.
With just a few days in this year, of course I am reflective, nostalgic and pensive. I own the fact that I just don’t “fit in” with many of my loved ones. I have outgrown monotony, course talk, and routine. I crave for real talk, vulnerability, real emotions, genuine unconditional love-- a good time. I accept the fact that the fulfillment that I seek and the void that often plagues my heart, cannot be filled by the people that I would expect should fill them. And that is okay. I respect where I am.
I honor the fact that I am different. That in losing the heart of my family, I have created a beautiful one of my own. I have made a vow to myself to never go against myself in order to do what is conventional and expected, particular during the Holiday season, simply to appease.
May I never have an Un-Merry Christmas or an Unhappy Birthday again, in the name of family.
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