Last year I was as down and sad as I’ve ever been as an adult. It lasted, on and off, for a large hunk of the year. There were times when part of me didn’t want to live anymore. I didn’t feel bad about feeling bad though. I allowed it to happen and run its course. I didn’t start feeling like I was used to feeling until early December.
But it didn’t last long before that sadness was starting to rise back up. I always hear people talking about how hard the end of the year is. So many people seem to get down and depressed around the holidays. I had never experienced that before even during other years when people we loved had died. But it happened this year. I didn’t make it happen. I didn’t start thinking sad thoughts. It happened on its own. I was sad. It didn’t matter that I had just started feeling as happy as I’d felt in a long time. All of a sudden I’d find myself feeling sad.
This time I was unwilling to just allow it to happen. I had grieved already. I had plenty of things to be grateful for and to be enjoying in these moments. I didn’t want to allow this sadness to overtake what I had to be happy about, I didn’t want to give in to it and feel bad when I had so much to feel good about. In the same way that I felt like it was right to allow myself to feel sad earlier in the year, I felt like it was right to push back against it this time.
The Saturday before Christmas I was supposed to go to a party at some friends’ house after work. When the time came I really didn’t want to go. I wasn’t super sad and depressed but I was a little down and had been at work all day dealing with all the grumpy people (you know how the holidays brings out the best in everyone). But my family was going to be expecting me to meet them at this party and I had agreed to go and I knew this was the exact kind of thing I should be doing to fight back against feeling sad. I went even though I was unexcited about it.
The host of the party was wearing a suit and tie that all matched. It was red and white and Christmasy. It was pretty awesome in its festive ridiculousness. That moment right after I arrived when I saw him and he was smiling and clearly happy about the suit too is all that it took to wipe away all those things I’d been feeling. Instantly, I was so happy to be there. The rest of the party didn’t even matter anymore. That moment was all that I needed, but the rest of the party was good too. I got a lot of time with my son in the beginning while he was waiting for a friend to show up and I got a lot of time with my own friends after that.
The next morning I played tennis with some of those friends. More good stuff to appreciate and be grateful for. These tennis matches are so great because of all the ingredients that go into them. We’re outside, we’re getting exercise and playing a fun game, we’re competing and we are spending time with friends and in some cases getting to know each other and make new friends.
After tennis I went to work but when I got home later that night another family was at my house to hang out with us and an old friend (not just that he is actually old, we’ve known him a long time too) who lives in Colorado was there to spend the night with us too.
How great is that? Fuck you sad feelings, I have all these people to help me fight you off. That was another fun night followed by another early morning tennis match. Then more time with our Colorado friend and the kids and Christmas Eve with my wife and kids and wow Christmas this year…it was a good one!
We didn’t have a lot of family at our house for Christmas because we don’t have a lot of family anymore but we made the most of the people we had. There’s just so much to feel good about, to appreciate. There’s so much that makes me feel grateful despite the sadness.
There are lots of good people in our lives and we get to see them and spend time with them regularly. Making that even better is that so many of us are raising our kids together so we are not alone on the harrowing journey that is child raising. There are plenty of us who have each other’s backs.
Even in our most miserable moments there are still good things to appreciate in our lives. When we’re miserable and sad and suffering, it’s hard to see that there is anything else in our lives but it’s there. Am I walking around with my head down or am I remembering to look up and see what’s happening all around me?
I didn’t really know how to say what I wanted to say in this post without giving all the examples of things that happened that I had to feel grateful for over those few days. I’m not really excited about posting a rundown of what I do from day to day. And I am not writing about those few days to pat myself on the back. “Look at me. I have friends and we go to parties. We’re so awesome.” This isn’t supposed to be about my life being special, it isn’t supposed to be a comparison to how any of you might have spent those few days. I’m just using these events in my life as an example to support the point I’m making about how we always have things to be grateful for even though we might not always feel like we do. Maybe I don’t need to be clarifying this but with all the social media b.s. now and how people just post the good stuff and we never see the bad stuff and people get all depressed and anxious comparing themselves to the perfect picture someone paints of themselves on social media…well anyway, I’m just explaining because of all that.
The best antidote to feeling down is to consciously remember all the stuff we have to feel good about. It’s there. Gratitude is a good feeling and it’s humbling and perspective-shifting.