Tuesday Coffee Chat

If you could make ONE holiday wish this year, what would it be?

It seems that lately I am hearing a lot of "Are you okay?" and "Are you in a bad mood?" and "Why are you in a bad mood?" and "Mom is cranky all the time now."

And, I am. Cranky, that is. Despite my best efforts.

I have had a lot on my mind lately. Most of it centers around my relationships, my part in them, my lack of them, my inability to take care of them. And with dwelling on these thoughts I actually make the relationships I do have worse.

I feel really tired and frustrated. I feel stuck a lot of the time, like I want to do things differently but don't know where to start. I haven't been sleeping well because I wake up and worry about it. It is so incredibly aggravating because I have always been a confident person so have just happily pushed forward in my relationships regardless of any return on my investment. But when I look back on them now I actually only see my mistakes and am suffocated by them. Times that I was giving it my all in relationships and thought they were going great were times when they really weren't. My confidence is shot! Do people really not care about me but just pretend that they do?

Let me give you just a simple example (and probably a little silly). I have always sent out Christmas cards, the cute family photo kind. Most years I would send about 50 cards to family and friends. I started to notice that we received fewer and fewer return cards each year. And the ones we did receive always came a good couple of weeks after we sent ours. And we weren't getting the cute photo Christmas cards that I know those families were sending. We were getting the generic cards, the ones that were picked up at the dollar store because those families had already sent their photo cards and got ours and said, "crap, we didn't send them one and now we need to." (I know this tactic because I have done it in the past.) This year I decided not to send cards. What's the point? And do you know how many Christmas cards we have received this year? Two. It just makes one stop and think, doesn't it?

These are the types of things that weigh heavy on my mind.

Happy Holidays, huh?

So here is my ONE holiday wish this year. I want to quit worrying about these kinds of things because they don't matter! I want to enjoy the holidays with my family, each and every little moment. I want to give all of my love to those who choose to spend time with me and to freely receive back all the love they have to give in return. And recognize that if I don't straighten up that they aren't going to want to spend time with me, either, and who would blame them? I want to get back to a place where I just love on people with all I have and not worry about whether they love me back. I want it to start with this holiday season so that I have momentum going into the new year.