Terrible Times
This can be a really tough time of year. We’d like to be, but few of us are, exempt from bouts of feeling awful unless we gloss over our lives for the month of December, which is encouraged by the season. Surrounded by joyousness, we try our best to remember all that is good in our lives, but soon we descend into thoughts of all the things that are wrong: with our families, with our finances, with ourselves. Charlie Brown encapsulates exactly how I feel when he says, “I should be happy, but I’m not.” I wonder, why “should”? Is it such a terrible social sin to feel lousy now and then?
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You wrote this awhile ago and so have no doubt felt 2300 entirely different emotional states since then. But sending you affectionate support anyway.
AND not missing your point, which I take as an enjoinder to be as honest and authentic about the blues as we are about the “know we’re blessed and grateful” parts of our lives. While I’m all for being optimistic, we can be a nation of fake-it-til-you-make-it cheerleaders, leaving the unwitting hapless soul with the impression that she’s the only one around who isn’t effortlessly on top of every area of her life.