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I am trying...

This year I am really trying to put the Merry back in Christmas.

I fought through the tears to decorate the house. I found the energy to bring back the Elf on the Shelf and I attempted to decorate the Christmas tree this year.  I even went shopping for gifts on several occasions. I did none of these things last year.

But still, I struggle.

The countdown on our chalkboard says three days till Christmas, but it still feels like any other day. I still cry, I still hurt and I still yearn for the days when we spent Christmas altogether. The Christmases where my son could lick the spoon from my Christmas baking and hang up his own ornaments and unwrap his gifts. The mornings where Mackenzie and Xavier would race out of bed to find Ginger, yelling at each other not to find him before the other. I tell myself every day to be thankful for what I have.

But still, I struggle.

There were months where I could fall asleep easily and slept through the night. But for whatever reason, my peaceful slumbers have been replaced with intrusive thoughts this month. I fear sleep. I am exhausted and anxious to rest, but as soon as I do those thoughts, those terrible memories and feelings take me places I don't want to go. I try to stop them. I tell them to go away, but they always find a way back into my head. So, I lay awake. My heart pounding, the tears falling and my mind racing until it stops. I sleep. Then wake again to do it all over again. Then get up, go through the motions of another day and do it all again.

As much as we try to be happy, and we try to make Christmas merry, the grief sneaks up on us. We can't avoid it, we can't snuff it or bury it. Instead, we embrace it along with the joy we have found in the season. I am learning how the two coincide and they really can get along. It's taking the good with the bad. It's about moving forward and not pretending it doesn't hurt or wallowing in the bad.

It's just how it is now.



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