My perennial holiday guest has arrived a bit early this year. I can’t say I wasn’t expecting him. Or that I would have prepared any differently. When he arrives each year I’m not exactly clotheslined. It’s more I succumb to being annoyingly suprised. I think I struggle a bit with his lack of respect for personal space. If not plunked down on my lap where I can’t move if I’m sitting then definitely suffocating me as he sits straight on my chest like an elephant.
You may play host to a family member of Drangst. Dragnst is my holiday guest personification of my dread and angst. You can picture a cross between Igor and Bane.
Real or imagined this is the time of the year I come to the realization of what a disappointment I am. I can’t pretend to measure up. My mind races through cycles of ridiculous phrases of self effacment, anger, self-pity, discontentment, paranoia, lonliness, and despair. I can’t just “be.”
What I mean by just being be involves several things. I can’t just sit. I can’t just let things not bother me. I can’t just let things go. I can’t forgive or accept forgiveness. I can’t just let things roll off of me. I can’t just be still. If there is such a thing of frenetic frenzy then that is the inside of my head. It’s the purest form of selfishness. It leaves me frayed like the end of an old shoe lace. Just like the shoe lace I can’t go backward without falling apart and I can’t go forward any further without fraying more and getting stuck.
I don’t know if this season will be any different from any other time in my life. I can’t say that this post will be any different from the 30 other ones I’ve written about anxiety, depression, lonliness, grief, etc. For this time period this is the two step game plan for handling my holiday guest.
- I’m going to unpack a lot of afghans and frumpy sweaters, buy more candles, breathe in more essential oils, go for more walks than runs, reflect on Psalms and Romans, journal, watch more DCI Banks with my twuwuv, look out for the needs of others, write more helpful posts than poor me posts, drink more tea and coffee, create paper collages, crochet again, schedule coffee and lunches with friends not just business contacts, eat tater tots, and read children’s classics.
- Be grateful for what I have and who I am right now rather than lamenting on what I don’t have or who I am not right now.
So let’s get started.
- What essential oils do you use ?
- What’s the first thing that comes to mind in Psalms?
- A creative writing prompt for gratefulness would be…?
- The best children’s classic you have ever read is…?
The Rabid Mime 