As I sat down in the new year to begin writing after my holiday hiatus, I went back to see where we had left off.  One of the blogs that jumped out at me was from early December.  I shared with you all the ways that the holidays can leave me uninspired and how I have tried to circumvent those little pitfalls over the years.

One of the goals of that blog was for me to remember the true meaning of Christmas, but the other was to remind myself that life continues to happen amongst the cards, gifts and celebrations.  It’s a deep breath, if you will, as we enter into a time when we hope for all things beautiful and filled with joy.  The reality is that this season was filled with a mixture of pain and joy for many. Knowing that you have friends whose hearts are breaking gives one a giant dose of  perspective when something doesn’t go as planned.  You find yourself saying things like, “it’s okay if you can’t make it for Christmas morning.  Just be safe. Oh, your gifts didn’t arrive in time because there was a tragedy at the post office?  The gifts are the least of my concerns.”

Real life is happening all around us, and to us, regardless of the time of year.  There isn’t a pause button for when we really want things to go smoothly.  If there were, we’d probably find ourselves pushing it every week.

For me personally, the last month brought some changes and honestly if I had not had a dose of perspective, it might have left me a little less than thrilled. Our traditional Christmas plans didn’t go as they normally do; there were a lot of moving parts this year. Our holiday plans didn’t look the same and we found ourselves rolling with it better than I could have imagined.

Okay, full disclosure:  I may have cried a little when our middle daughter told us she was sharing her Christmas with her boyfriend’s family and I may have been  a little disappointed when our oldest told us she was going to NYC for new years.  BUT it wasn’t because I wasn’t happy for them or that I wasn’t okay with the changes.  It’s just that after 22 years of celebrating a certain way you find yourself needing to catch your breath for minute.  Sometimes we need a moment to realize that everything is changing and the last time you had Christmas, New Year’s Eve or whatever…it was the last time it was going to look like that.

For some of us, those life changes left a hole that I can only pray will heal with time.  My heart aches for their loss and their courage inspires me to live more fully.

The changes we experienced in our family this year were simply growing pains.  These are the things that make life interesting, help us to grow, keep us on our toes and inspire us to be better people.

Here’s to 2018.  Let us be kind to one another, let us love unconditionally and let us inspire everyone around us.