It’s that time of year. In this part of the United States, it’s cold. And it’s dark. A lot. And we’re in the slippery slide between Thanksgiving and New Year’s when there are added activities on our calendars: concerts to attend and parties to get dressed up for and family gatherings requiring us to play nice and shopping expectations to fulfill and food to prepare and nasty germs lurking in the corners with nowhere to go, and it’s cold and dark. It’s that time of year that can feel oppressive despite all the bright lights and jolly jingles and spiked spritzers. We might fight it but it’s easy to feel down.
Blue. Low. Tapped out. Sad. And maybe a smidge mad. Is it all the environment around us or is there something in the landscape within us that snags our joy and holds it hostage for the holidays? Are our bodies and our spirits in cahoots with each other so that as one sags the other tanks? Maybe life has sucker-punched us and we feel entirely justified in being down and out. And maybe it’s just all a case of trickling.
Maybe it goes like this: stuff tumbles around in our head. Bittersweet memories. Unresolved arguments. Incomplete projects. Shattered dreams. Because it’s cold and dark outside we spend more time inside which becomes an incubator for this kind of stuff. From our head it trickles down to our heart. There it simmers and stagnates and clogs our desires to engage in living with others for fear that more memories will be made that might sour, more disagreements could arise, more efforts could be squandered, more dreams take wing that might turn to dust. Finally, this stuff trickles down and out of our hands. We wring them. We sit on them. We stare at them and wonder what use they are. We might not do one blessed thing that’s good for ourselves or anyone else.
If that’s at all akin to what happens to us this time of year, remediation is needed! Shift the tumble cycle to fluff! Sift the stuff to spot the treasure! Stir the pot, crank up the heat, and bring a zest for living to a boil! Lend a hand, extend a hand, hold another’s hand, shake hands, do handstands! What outrageous joy it is to be alive even inside when it’s cold and dark outside! Feel the down in a comforter and take the garbage out but be at home with the Love that lifts the weights we can’t bear.
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