It's Christmas day. Many friends are sharing their joyful sentiments and photos of cheerful family gatherings filled with gifts. Other friends are living through the first Christmas without a loved one, or spending the day alone a continent away from their closest family members. Some are in the middle of war living in fear. Overwhelming joy alongside deep sadness stretches far and wide.
This dichotomy of experience is not reserved for Christmas, yet this time of year presents a picture of "shoulds" every place we turn. Advertisements of jovial holidays filled with happy families and beautiful gifts, hallmark movies depicting the perfect Christmas romance and children getting everything they wished for in spite of great obstacles.
I've experienced countless dreamy Christmases and some with a deep heartache, sometimes simultaneously. What I've learned is that it's possible to have both at the same time. Joy and heartache, gratitude and longing, happiness and sadness.
The years roll on, if we're lucky, and times get different. A heart can overflow with gratitude while also feeling a twinge of wishing for what was or longing for who is no longer there. I'm a sentimental type, but I'm guessing this is true for most of us on some level.
We all live through different chapters of joy and pain in our lives. The "shoulds' of society can make our experience feel much heavier on certain days. To find our way back to balance, we must wade through the fabricated stories of how things should be and find our way to what fuels our vibrancy so we can add light to the world. Afterall, people among us can always use more light, especially those who may not be in the bright chapter.
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