I'm another member of the chorus composed of people 'the holidays make me incredibly depressed'. (Our carols suuuuuuuuuck.)
This is coming in the midst of both seasonal depression, a longer-running major depression, and two major health issues. Not great timing.
I remember the holidays when I was a kid. This isn't a 'when I was young the world was different' complaint; many people still have the holiday season I had as a child in their lives today and that is something that makes me, if not happy, more at peace with the world than I might be otherwise.
It isn't that the world has changed, it's that the people around me have. Many are simply gone, which is how things work in that whole 'living means eventually dying' thing at some point or another. Others have simply changed; they've stopped caring, or have shifted focus away (or in one case further away) to other things at this time of year.
So, uh. I spend today, Christmas Eve, not deliberately alone, since I don't avoid the people around me, but I do take some time to myself to just talk to the people who aren't here any more.• I miss them. I haven't forgotten them and never will, and I will never not miss them, particularly at this time of year. I tell them about the things that happened over the year, about things I know they'd love, things that would have driven them bonkers.
And it helps me make it through. It doesn't matter if it's all ultimately stupid, because it helps.
So, uhm. Peace be with you and all the rest for the remainder of the day, MSB. I hope your holidays are good, whatever they are, and if you don't celebrate any of them and somehow feel left out, I say fuck it, make one up and have yourself a blast. If you're missing someone, maybe try this, and see if it helps. I hope it does, if you do.
This isn't normally the sort of thing I'd share here, especially lately, but it looks like a lot of us are missing someone, or maybe a great many someones, right now. It felt like the right time.
Be well, be merry if you can, but try not to let yourself think there's something wrong with you or be hard on yourself if you aren't able to manage merry, OK?
- Or the ceiling, depending on your view of what happens after people pass. Even if that is the case, which I don't dismiss as a possibility, I believe that so long as someone is remembered, they are there with us. These people shaped our lives in some way, and in that, too, they are with us, and they always will be.
