Just a thought… You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. [Maya Angelou]
On this Christmas Eve eve, let me take a moment or two to share with you a few joyful decisions after a terribly hard year.
In addition to taking in the advice and meaning behind those two words “let them” that I shared in last week’s blog, I have continued to shift my perspective.
Rob and I came down to the Palm Springs area on the first of December with a few simple aims: delete Christmas from our hearts’ apps, and enjoy warmer weather away from the stress of a house that’s been on the market for seven (!) months, and the uproar of a condo that’s only half moved-into.
Although the latter concern is still taking up a considerable part of our brains, we also know that our realtor team back in North Saanich is doing its best. The rest – people’s reactions to the house, the market in general and all of those variables – are out of our control. We cross our fingers with each showing and try not to think about it, although continuously moving money around and waiting for that good news keeps the inactivity on the house front in the fore.
We’ve mostly held to our promise to shelve Christmas this year as we adjust to being alone again. But an invitation to dinner on Wednesday from a woman I met last year down here (thanks to my podpal Lisa), has changed the complexion of the holiday a bit. After hemming and hawing for a few days, we decided to join her motley crew of friendly stragglers coming over for meals on our laps and good company. And even Dottie and Livi are invited!
See, we realized that to stay home, watch Netflix and barbecue burgers would be us punishing ourselves. While I’m a huge proponent of doing what’s right for you around any holiday or significant date, this felt like a really great idea for us.
I didn’t bring any Christmassy clothes, so I’ll just wear a flowery sundress. But to my great amazement, when we saw this marked from $70 t0 $40 to $30 (gotta love Kohl’s, even if it IS in US dollars), Rob leaned in to the “what the hell” sentiment that accompanied our accepting the invitation. I even got him to pose in his Elf blazer right there in the store.
Our new year will hopefully continue on this path of once again holding on to what we know in times of uncertainty. Of making choices. Of throwing off the yoke of sadness and donning something stupid and garish just for laughs (or at least letting Rob do it).
Handling grief and depression has to be on one’s own terms (as long as you’re not hurting yourself). The response to this year’s new project Not a Mourning Person grief briefs (videos) on YouTube has given me fuel to keep going. I mean that in two ways: to continue to produce what I hope is meaningful and heartfelt content for those wearing our shoes, and to keep moving forward in my own life.
For a few years, having written Mourning Has Broken: Love, Loss and Reclaiming Joy helped keep the darkest of thoughts at bay because I knew if I just gave up, it would send the worst of messages to those who looked to that book for inspiration.
So I’ll say, as I did at my good-bye breakfast from the radio station eight years ago this month, thank you: You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. I quoted the amazing Gladys Knight and the Pips song, and it had the parenthetical and unsaid addition (besides, of course, Rob, Lauren and her baby Colin). Our blessings have been both added to, and subtracted from, in the years since we moved west, but we have never stopped finding ways in which to be grateful.
Again, thank you. And Rob and I wish for you whatever you need these next few days and 2025 to be.