Christmas Eve 2024

With or In Remembrance


It’s one of the emotion-filled days of the year. You are either feeling happy or sad, stressed or alone or wishing you could be alone. Last night I wrote myself a list of things to do that already overwhelmed me, mostly because I didn’t know how much time I would have until all the things needed to be done and ready to pack before the five or more hour trip to my in-law’s house to spend Christmas holidays with them. I woke up at 5:45 with my husband coming down the stairs ready to get to work, and already I was ready (in my adrenaline-filled body but not in my decaffeinated mind) to start the day.

After a few minutes of Facebook motivation, I went to it. I got my coffee and parfait, trying to hurry up because the rest of my list couldn’t be done sitting down at the table eating breakfast. Packing five different bags of drinks, clothes and bathroom stuff, pills (which is its own thirty minute thing since I conveniently had to restock for the week, so twenty or so pills times seven days), charging my phone while all this is happening, wondering if I should have done Christmas cards but bringing them just in case. Moving stuff by the door so everything is ready to be loaded and it looks like we’re moving for a month compared to the one bag that was there this morning from my husband. I don’t know if I should feel guilty or accomplished!

Having these couple weeks “off work” have been amazing. I’ve pushed myself to do as much as I can every day. I’ve pushed past my comfort zone in doing dishes, which depression used to stop me in my tracks. I’ve helped myself declutter my stuff and now have two wardrobes in two sizes, a summer wardrobe in size large for when I want loose fitting clothes and winter wardrobe in size medium when I want to bundle up. Small wardrobes each. I’ve come a very long way in hoarding clothes! I’m also cooking more! I used to love cooking and baking especially. I’ve gotten into baking again with pull apart cookies, pumpkin bread, and that’s pretty much it so far. But we’ve cooked pasta and eggs galore! And toast! Yummy!

Anyways, this time of rest has made me enjoy life again. And even though I don’t look forward to going back to work, I look forward to contributing back to the household financially again. I would love to say this blog would take off, and I could just blog full-time and respond to comments, but I am thrilled at the number of views so far this has received! I never thought that even with my friends, it would get close to 100 views in less than ten days! Thank you guys so much for reading!

I just want to say, feel what you need to feel today and tomorrow and this week. Don’t try to bottle it up inside and wait for it some other time, because chances are, you’ll forget about “some other time” but it won’t forget about you! It will explode when you least want it to, and that’s not good. I’m still learning to feel one’s feelings, but from what I can gather, pause, figure out the base emotion, not the story behind it, but the simplest emotion of what it is, where in your body it is, and just focus on it. Let it breathe. Let tears well up. Let a smile out. Let your hands and feet shake. Let whatever happens happens. But the better you do that, the less likely it is to build up in your body to explode later on. And nobody wants to explode on someone we love.

Let’s all have a beautiful Christmas Eve! And hopefully we get to spend it with or in remembrance of the ones we love!

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