I don't know exactly why I feel all kinds of nostalgic and melancholy and just plain sad today.
Well, I guess I sorta know.
It's December, and now I'm thinking about getting our Christmas tree tomorrow and putting up some lights and baking some cookies. Then I'm thinking about the holiday break and the 2 1/2 weeks off my husband gets and the fact that we have no plans at all. Which a couple months ago sounded just fine and dandy to me. But, as the holiday cheer spreads and the decorations go up, and the date approaches, I feel the loneliness set in. Subtly at first. Then flooding over me in waves.
I tend to get a little obsessive about hopping on the internet and attempting to drown my sorrows in airfare and shuttles and train tickets, if necessary.
So I *might* have spent a couple of hours click-happy, trying to make something, anything, work.
To not have to be alone in Mexico this Christmas.
Which leads me to think how ridiculous I am being, since I won't actually be alone. I have a fabulous husband and adoring son to share my holidays with. I should be thankful. I should be content. And I hate that I'm not.
And, if for no other reason, I feel this way as God's little nudge of empathy, then it's worth it. How often do we think about those people who dread December because of its haunting reminders of all they have loved, and lost?
And how often do we think about those people who dread December because they truly are alone and everywhere they look are reminders of their loneliness?
I am guilty. I am often sucked into the glory of the season, and completely oblivious to the pain this very season causes so many.
If that is you? And you are reading? I am thinking of you. This very day, because of my own self-absorbed pity party, I am thinking of you.
The verdict remains the same. We will be, just the three of us, home for Christmas. Only this time, Mexico is our home. And I have to be okay with that. And the small twinge of pain that causes my heart? Will pass.
