are the holidays over yet?

This season is almost over.

I promise.

Just a few more weeks to go. Big hurdles, yes. And then they will be over.

So many different traditions with so many different holidays stuffed into these last two months.

Whether or not you acknowledge any of them, you can’t help but be soaking in them. Leaving your house this time of year means you’re exposed to all of it: glitter, tinsel, lights, food, music, intact and seemingly happy families, debates over which words to say, whose house to go to, wishing you were anywhere but here.

Does anybody actually truly, authentically like these holidays? That’s sort of rhetorical, I guess. Regardless, these two months that end out the year can be excruciating when you’re in pain already.

It adds a whole other layer to grief.

Just a few more weeks to go before life resumes its own rhythm and cadence of grief without those holidays on top of it.

You’ll come through this.

Not stronger, not better, not worse – just through. You’ll come through this just as you move through every other moment here: breath by breath. Sometimes on the floor, sometimes surprisingly upright.

When it gets to be too much, and before it gets to be too much, take time to be present with yourself, with your heart. Take time – even just a moment – to check in with yourself. Take walks, if you can. Escape to the bathroom. Hold something in your pocket as a talisman and an anchor.

Come back again and again to your own heart.

One moment at a time. This season will end. The extra added weight of this season will end.

Until then, I am lighting candles for all of you, for all of us.

For what you’ve lost, for what you carry, and for the love that still lives on.

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How about you? How are you caring for yourself during this relentless holiday season? Let us know in the comments.