This holiday season, I’m not really feeling it, I’m trying, I truly am.

It’s been a tough year. It’s been a beautiful year. Sometimes the tough and the beautiful pick fights with each other over which one gets to be in charge in this here noggin of mine. They’re acting like buttheads in there and I end up an emotional basket case because they’re arguing over the controls.

One moment I’m fine and asking my husband to bring out the Christmas bins from the garage, and then I’m not fine and the idea of decorating at all seems silly and pointless. That particular magic shrank as the children grew.

sigh

Guess which one’s pushing buttons in my brain today? I probably shouldn’t be writing right now, not for others to read . . . but I am. Maybe someone else is feeling something similar, you just never know. Besides, writing about the not-so-good usually brings out some good by the end. I feel like I’ve written this before. I probably have.

I’ve kept most of the tough to myself this year, I guess I’ve kept the beautiful to myself too, so much so that I all but disappeared for six months. I didn’t write. I didn’t call people. I didn’t reach out. I should have been doing all those things. Instead, I sat on the porch and tried to ignore my pain, both physical and emotional, by losing myself in book after book.

Some days were better than others. On those days I changed out of my pajamas, sometimes it was just into new pajamas, but it was an accomplishment on days when I accomplished little else. I’m not going to bore you with details of what brought me to where I was during those months, where I still am some days. I might at some point though, if you’re willing to lend an ear . . .

When I decided to peek out of my little ‘me’ cave, I almost regretted it. My timing kind of sucked. It was all politics and arguing and people unfriending each other, online and in real life, over it all. It was disheartening. I figured I had to face the world at some point though, if I didn’t I would forget how. I was forgetting how, and you know what? Part of me wanted to forget. I don’t always like the world much.

I didn’t know I missed what I had been missing. It took me a minute, but once I made an appearance, I was embraced. I’d been missed. My words had been missed. I’d been an ass. I needed to be one for a while, but reading the messages left for me in my absence overwhelmed me. Some where worried inquiries, some where supporting and encouraging, all of them made my heart smile. Those messages made me realize I mattered in more ways than I’d realized.

I don’t really even know, not in the traditional sense, most of the beautiful folks I call my friends, they are letters and smiley faces and hearts on a screen. But really, they are so much more. I have been blessed. God sent these amazing people into my life, He probably figured I’d never go out and find them, so He crossed our online paths instead.

Thank you, dear Lord. Thank you for that.

I’m still healing. I still spend time alone on the porch, even when it’s kind of chilly, lost in the pages of a book. But I am writing, I am calling people (okay, maybe not this one, I’ve thought about it though), and I’m reaching out – in my own way.

As a matter of fact, I think I’ve just shown myself that I may have come a little farther than I thought. Maybe the beautiful took over in this scattered head of mine. Must have, because I think I do want to get those Christmas decorations put up after all . . .

This post was written for  Finding Ninee‘s Finish the Sentence Friday – This weeks prompt was, “This holiday season, I . . .“