I wish I didn’t want. I wish family didn’t mean so much to me. I wish I was the strong, fiercely independent, insensitive person I pretend to be… But I’m not… or at least in the moment I don’t feel like I am. Here’s a deep, dark secret for you… I’m actually quit a sensitive person. I have to soul of an artist, everything is taken to heart. I may bounce it straight from my heart into a tightly sealed box, but it first hits the heart.

Christmas is a hard season. It’s a hard season for many people. Every year it does get better for me, but it is still difficult. Against all my valiant attempts, I find myself harboring emotions of loneliness and desires for better relationships. I suppose a want for self-improvement isn’t a bad thing but still… Aside from all the lovey dovey family and forced warm-feeling crap of this season, what is Christmas truly about? It’s about acknowledging and being grateful for the birth of a sacrifice and be birth of an epic love story.

All I know to do on this day is to focus on those things. It’s so easy to get lost in a self-pitied mantra but how ethnocentric is that? In order to make peace with this troublesome time of year, in order to make peace with Christmas I must make peace with the fact that CHRISTMAS IS NOT ABOUT ME. Now there’s a revelation. Christmas is not about the fact that I grew up in a crappy family, it’s about the birth of Christ. (Duh, me, duh…. What an embarrassing reminder.)

So… Thank you Jesus for entering this earth in such a way that allowed me to be able to better relate to you. Thank you for allowing yourself to be born while understanding that meant you were also choosing to allow yourself to die… All for the chance that I might turn to follow you. Thank you Lord. Merry Christmas.