Christmas is Over

The holiday season, especially Christmas, is always a paradox for me. It should be the happiest time of the year with all the family, food, and fun, I mean who doesn’t like getting presents!

We hear happy music and we hear messages of joy and gratitude. People (generally) seem to be in a better mood for a few weeks and many folks even get a few days off from work. There are lots of bright lights and joyful images everywhere helping to remind us of the season.

I desperately want to share in it, to feel it deep inside me. I would love to feel the warmth and love and closeness that so many people seem to enjoy during this time of year. It would be wonderful to be immersed in the holiday’s and to be sad when they are over.

But I don’t, and it’s not for the lack of trying. Every year I tell myself I’m going to feel it. I’m going to get into the spirit of the season, I’m going to finally understand why people love this time of year so much.

And every year I fail. This year was no different.

In almost every way 2021 has been a wonderful year. Business has more than doubled from the previous year, one of my kids graduated from high school and has been flourishing in college. My other kids are doing wonderfully well. I have fully enjoyed the first full year in decades completely free of abuse and drama.

I had hoped to end the year on a high note and fully immerse myself in the holiday season. I had planned to put my lights up early and in October I set out to do my Christmas shopping early (for once!).

But as the season grew near, those intentions fell to the wayside. I dug the lights out, but didn’t put them up. I thought about Christmas shopping, but didn’t. In the weeks leading up to Christmas I found myself right back where I always am, just wishing for it to be over.

To be clear, I don’t mope around, I don’t act like a grinch. I’m not negative or cynical. In fact, I put on a smile and a happy front, pretending to be just as happy as everyone else seems to be. I try very hard to keep my feelings to myself in hopes that I don’t bring anyone else down.

Despite my efforts and hopes, this holiday season was no different than any other. I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise, in retrospect there’s no reason it should have been any different. Having a good year and willing myself to have a better holiday is hardly a solid course of action.

Looking back, the holidays were always difficult. My parents divorced when I was young, and while they did their best to make the holidays special, I don’t think I ever got over things being divided up, leaving one place where I was happy for a place that made me sad.

The holidays never felt special, rather they felt like a serious of timelines and benchmarks that had to be met. It was hard to enjoy the day with the knowledge that we were leaving at some point to go with our other parent.

I could probably write a book about all that, but I won’t. I’ll simply say that it was hard to really enjoy the holidays while I was growing up.

Fast forward 20 years and I have a family of my own. There’s no way to feel bad at Christmas when you have little kids in the house. I imagine there were a few years when I enjoyed the holidays.

But eight years ago we divorced, and all the bad about the holiday’s came rushing back.

No more enjoying the time, no more relaxing. Instead the time again became about schedules and timelines. I found it difficult again to enjoy the time knowing it was going to end prematurely.

My kids are older now and Christmas has certainly evolved with them. This year we were lucky to get Christmas in before lunch time. (Apparently 9 am is the crack of dawn for college kids!)

While the morning was nice, for me it was overshadowed by the knowledge that the kids would soon be gone. I tried to live in the moment and to enjoy what time I had, and I did to some extent.

But inevitably everyone left.

I believe some day I’ll unlock the secret to a happy holiday, and on the 26th I’ll be sitting here writing about how amazing the holiday was and how sad I am that it’s over.

Unfortunately that’s not this year, and that’s ok. I did incrementally better this year. I had moments of joy, moments where I didn’t let the past of the future intrude.

So that’s a good thing, and something to build on for next year.

Only A Couple Hours Left

It’s 10pm. In two hours it will be December 22, my birthday.

Birthday’s are nothing special when they happen at Christmas time, but this year is a little different as I will be turning 50 in a couple hours.

My last day of my 49th year has been busy, and it’s just now that I have a minute to stop and collect my thoughts.

I wish there had been an internet like this one when I was 20, and that I had a blog. It would be very interesting to see what my 20 year old self might have said about turning 50. I suspect that almost nothing I would have predicted 30 years ago would have happened. But I’ll take a shot.

• I’d be married for 35+ years
• I’d have 2 kids
• I’d be far up in a large company
• I’d have a comfortable retirement nest egg
• I’d have traveled to places like Italy and Ireland
• My kids would be in college

I’ll be 50 in a couple hours, so here’s how that list I would have made at 20 compares to the reality of today.

• I’m twice divorced
• I have 3 amazing kids
• I’m self employed
• What’s retirement?
• I’ve been to Canada a bunch of times
• 2 of 3 kids are in college

Of course there are lots of other life things that I might have added back then, but it’s safe to say that my life at 50 is nothing like I would have imagined back when I was 20. Sometimes it feels like I’m watching someone else’s life given how far it has gone from what I would have predicted.

But that’s ok. My first 50 years have been interesting, to say the least. I truly believe that I’ve learned a lot, and that the next 50 years have the potential to be amazing thanks to everything I’ve learned. (Yes, I hope to live another 50 years. I believe my generation will expect to live longer than those before us, and to live reasonably well.)

So in the final few hours of my 49th year, what sticks out most?

• I’m grateful beyond words that my kids are healthy and happy, and that they are genuinely good humans. Each of them are already better people than I am.
• I’ve survived two brutally abusive marriages. I could easily write a book about both, but thanks to a really good counselor I’ve finally figured out how I ended up in those situations, and more importantly how to not end up in them ever again. I am extremely grateful for this revelation otherwise I’d be doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes.
• I’m self employed. It still sounds weird to say it. Some days I find it terrifying! I miss getting paid every two weeks! But I’ve learned a ton, and 2021 was a remarkable year. There’s no reason to think 2022 won’t continue the upward trend. I’m very grateful to not be stuck at a cubicle having the life sucked out of me every day.
• I’m still here. It occurred to me today that a fair number of people I went to high school and college with did not make it to 50, or anywhere close for that matter. Life is a fleeting gift that can be taken from any of us at any moment.
• There’s still lots to do. Real estate and loan signings have been an improvement from corporate life, but this is still not the life I want. I’m a slave to other people’s whim’s, my time is absolutely not my own. I have the skills to begin building income streams online, and that’s the only way I will achieve the freedom I seek. I want to be free to work on my time from anywhere on the planet with an internet connection. driving 5,000 miles a month, having people walk away from deals at the last possible second, and always doing things on timelines other people set is still not freedom. but freedom is attainable, if I choose it.

That’s about it for my 49th year. I could probably write 100 blog posts about the past 50 years. But that would be looking backward, I need to keep my eyes focused on the road ahead!

We’re At the End, Or the Beginning

Although we are a week away from Christmas, and most of us are consumed with shopping, planning meals, parties, and other such Christmas fare, we are also two weeks from the end of the year.

The start of the new year always brings promise. The promise to start a new diet and lose weight, the promise to go to the gym, the promise to take that class or learn that skill we’ve been procrastinating.

But it’s at this time of year that we also look back and take stock of how far we have (or have not) come. In most cases, an honest assessment brings a reminder that we probably haven’t kept many of the promises that we made to start 2021. Studies show that few new promises or habits last much past the end of January.

We all have reasons (excuses) for why we didn’t accomplish those goals we set a year ago. “Life happens” seems to be a common theme. “I was busy with work” or lately, “the pandemic” seem to be equally popular excuses.

So we set our goals and make promises to ourselves, we usually fail, and at the end of the year we make excuses.

I would bet many of us would cite this cycle as an annual rite of passage. Something we mindlessly do (or perhaps halfheartedly do) as an annual ritual.

Fueling this silliness are all the folks who make money off our wishful thinking. The fitness business lives off of January, hooking people into memberships, training courses, and all kinds of other optimistic possibilities that help fuel peoples’ fantasies.

Of course the self help folks also profit nicely this time of year. Who doesn’t want to be a better person in 2022? What lonely single person doesn’t want 2022 to be the year they are swept off their feet by that special someone with whom they will live happily ever after!

This isn’t a rant about New Year’s resolutions. Deep down I think we all know the reality. I’ve made and broken countless resolutions.

I think I’ve learned to tune out people telling me about their resolutions, and worst, I’ve tuned myself out from my own attempt to start something new.

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t try or learn new things. That doesn’t mean we can’t lose weight or get in better shape.

If we’re being honest, humans can be quite amazing when they want to be! Lots of people want to lose weight, and they do. Lots of people want to learn a new skill, switch jobs, or find the love of their life, and they do!

The people who fail are probably the majority, but it’s not fair to only focus on them. There are lots of success stories. There are lots of people who “resolve” to do things at other times of the year besides January 1.

Negativity gets a lot of attention, and attention makes people money .

But there’s no reason we can’t celebrate the good. Why not celebrate the people who make it? Why not celebrate ourselves even when we do fail? At least we tried!

Not much good comes from getting down on ourselves, and none comes from beating ourselves up endlessly.

Failing is human. I recently saw a video produced by SpaceX showing their numerous rocket failures, all of which led to (eventually) successful landings. Big spectacular failures resulted in success, success that would not have been possible without all those failure.

If you are taking time to reflect about the year 2021 was, it’s perfectly fine to note what went wrong, or what didn’t turn out as planned.

But it’s not ok to focus on the bad exclusively. What about the good? What went well? And probably most important, what can you learn from the things that didn’t work out?

Don’t be romanced by the year ending notion that things are always bad if they don’t work out. Why didn’t you go to the gym? Why didn’t you finish that course you started? Why didn’t you learn that new skill that was so important a year ago?

Answer those questions, learn from them, and move on. No need to dwell on the past or ruminate on our failures.

Live, learn, move on.