I see the list floating list over your head too. Wrap presents, bake cookies, pick up gifts for teachers, wine for neighbours and Doctors. Get nails done. Dress kids up - have photos taken, send cards.
Get tree. Decorate tree. Try not to be an obsessive cow about how and where
ornaments are placed upon it. Uphold at least three to five annual Christmas traditions,
whatever they may be .....annual girls Christmas party ? Make gingerbread house ?
Bake and decorate five different kinds of cookies ? Take kids to see Santa ?
Go to Santa Claus parade ?
Fit in dance recital school concert and attend at least five different festive functions which fall on three nights, all overlapping - find a way to figure it out - just get there - to all of them.
Decline, none of them . Just check it off of the list.
I see you dreading the road trip home to the in laws, I see you imagining you didn't have to attend that work party. I know you would rather be at home in yoga pants watching Netflix.
I see you do all of this in the name of the season and I also see you completely unable to step aside from the madness, the expectations and the lists, to take some much needed time for yourself.
I know you think it's not OK to do this. Once upon a time, I did too.
I know you think you have to keep enduring all the chaos simply because you can.
I also know that just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
I see all of this because once upon a time - I was just like you.
Then I got divorced.
I learned the hard way and am learning still that traditions can be both our comfort and anchor but the expectations that go with them, when unmet or perhaps unmatched with equal passion, can be down right painful. They can bond us in joyful memories for years to come, or hurt us in quiet resentment and dread as we smile and force our way through it.
I am not really sure what the middle ground is since I only know and observe the pendulum as it swings between one extreme and the next...but I cannot turn away from the disconnect...from the people who are truly struggling and trying so hard to uphold the impossible, and from those who have no choice but to humbly embrace their quiet lives.
I understand in the most bittersweet way, what a stressed out mother would not give for the silence I have learned to sit with, if only for a day.
I also understand what a lonely single mother counting the sleeps until her children return to her, wouldn't give for a cut of your chaos, just to have her children close and her world a little less divided. Even if she chose this.
The truth is, none of us ever fully understands another individual until we have walked in their shoes and allowed ourselves to entertain the idea that not everything is as it seems.
Consider the fact that we all struggle and search and at times feel like frauds, one way or another, as we try to muddle our way through this game of being grown ups.
Consider that the only measure of true happiness, of the lasting kind, comes from a peace within. Know that the only judge of what that is, is you. The real you. The one the world doesn't get to see enough of. The one you try so hard to hide from the world around you, lest you fail to measure up.
Dear stressed out Mom at Christmas time, wake up, look in the mirror, love yourself enough to take care of your own needs, your own soul, your own inner voice. Know that in doing so, your children and spouse and anyone else who loves you, will get the absolute best of you, and you in turn can bask in the glow of being the most authentic version of yourself.
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