(Unrelated photos are of squirrel feeding gnome. (“Gnome, he’s my uncle!”-look up Gnome joke to get this))

This holiday season can be a painful one. And if it is that for you today, keep reading.

Family. History. Unhealed. These are loaded words at this time of year for me. They cover the immediate family I came from, the one I created in my marriage, and all of my ancestors, too. 

That’s a lot of mouths to feed the bird to.

There is more focus on blood family at the holiday, so it makes sense that if that is a sore spot, a magnifying glass only makes it more so.

I only know the unhealed parts when they rear their heads. And they did last night. And I was stunned. And I took action. And I got relief.

In the past, those unhealed parts looked like a bag of bricks and instead of gingerly taking one out at a time to throw it in the river and lighten my load, I took the whole bag, tied it to my ankle and thought about jumping in the river. For 25 years.

Sometimes, the pain I feel doesn’t even belong to me. It is the anguish my great Aunt Beulah felt over the loss of her 8 year old son, Richard. That same grief my mother carried because she was like his sister, also 8 when he died. I never saw that released. I simply saw it in my mother’s bag of bricks. And picked it up to put in my bag. Along with her unhealed brick of my father’s death at 42. Right next to my brick of losing my father at age 7.

These people are all gone, but their unhealed parts still remain. Begging to be healed.

I knew 24 Turkey days in my marriage. And this marks number 7 since my new life began. 

Since my divorce, each holiday, at first, was just less shitty than the one before.  And somewhere along the line, that changed.

Don’t know why or how, doesn’t matter much to me. Point is, it got better. Maybe because I started to create a new life. Likely so. In fact, I got my happy back. Took a lot of work and still does, if I am completely honest. 

This time of year, with the increase in darkness in each day, is one of my challenges in the mental health olympics. The beach helps, but dark is dark.

I wish you all a season of healing, joy, release and laughter. 

Look to the light. Keep looking forward. Keep looking up. 

More will be revealed. 

The light at the end of the tunnel is not a train. 

And if all else fails, Black Friday is tomorrow, Cyber Monday is around the corner, and Amazon is right at your fingertips!