Holiday Update!

Ok so I posted a thanksgiving update on Thanksgiving, but for some reason it didn’t publish right. Because of that, I deleted it, and because I can’t remember what the update said, this is my overall holiday season update combining Thanksgiving and my Christmas planning  so far. I will also update you all on the future of this blog.

Thanksgiving:

A Hard Month:

November has been a really difficult month for me and my mental health ever since 2004, but now thankfully is over without ad much stress as it usually causes me. Somehow we are already almost half way through with the last month of 2023!

Last year I made a post about my grandfather and how much he meant to me. He died when I was 10 and even though it’s 19 years later as of last month, the grief has had a profound impact on my life. He was one of the only people in my birth family who never abused or neglected me (though I came to humanize him more last year after collecting information for a memoir and finding that he wasn’t as perfect as I built him up to be in my mind.) I learned that hear no one is perfect and that we shouldn’t put other humans on a pedestal it is not fair to them because no one can live up to such high standards.

It is important to have people we admire, but my admiration for my grandfather was so intense that it worsening the quality of my life. I spent so much time worrying about doing only stuff that he would have done with me or would have wanted to do, that I didn’t think about what I wanted for my life. I was living in the past from the time in my childhood that he was most present, but wasn’t taking steps to build my future or foster the relationships with the people in my present. Now I still think of him and honor him at key moments like on the week of November 20th, 22, and through the 25th, or on days important to my spirituality in terms of remembering past ancestors, but I don’t focus on him every day of my life (this is a relatively new development in my life).

Let me share the reason that particular week is notable for me and get on with the present day update…

My grandfather died on November 20th, 2004

His birthday was November 22nd, 1944

And we spent that week in 2004 traveling from where we were living in Connecticut, to where he and my grandma were living in New York so we could attend his funeral making the week of the 20th very powerful for my grief. I have lost several other loved ones since then, and he wasn’t the first person I lost, but it was the first funeral I attended and since all I saw at the funeral was his urn and a picture if him, I thought he was on a trip until 2 years later when I realized he was gone and not able to come back.

Thanksgiving week 2023

This year the 20th fell on the third Monday of November and the 25th fell on that Saturday, so it was almost a full week. Before the month even started I worked out a plan with my therapist and my adoptive mom (I live with her now, I may make a post about how that’s been, because I have some experiences with lessons to share) for how I would handle the month as it got closer to the week of the 20th.

The 20th itself was a hard day, I didn’t have the will to do much but I scheduled an appointment on the 22nd to donate blood in honor of my grandfather who’s cause of death was actually Lukemia (this is the reason I donate whenever possible). I did not do much else but have video calls with my birth mom and remember the good times with my grandfather, watching stuff we used to like to watch with him. The 21st my adoptive mom, 2 of my adoptive brothers, my adoptive great grandma, my adoptive grandma (great grandma’s daughter, mom’s mother), and I all are our Thanksgiving dinner early at Texas Road House.

Since we thought that was the only thing we were gonna do for Thanksgiving, we were all surprised when my mom’s brother and his wife invited us all to Thanksgiving the next day at their place. I almost didn’t go because I got really (grossly) sick that night and for the beginning of the day. When I told my mom I did not think I should go, she was supportive at first, but then a wave of realization cane over her. She called me (we were in different rooms of the house) and reminded me that I did not go to Thanksgiving dinner last year because I was experiencing the same kind of sickness. That’s when I started realizing that I probably didn’t get food poisoning from texas roadhouse, and that I was probably just feeling physical manifestations of my grief.

Please do not misunderstand me, physical symptoms are still unpleasant and difficult to deal with no matter what their cause, but it is possible to work through your anxieties and use coping techniques to relax your mind, where as, that is very much less possible when you are experiencing an illness like food poisoning or the stomach flu.

Using my coping skills actually worked for me this Thanksgiving to get me feeling well enough to go to Thanksgiving dinner at 3 that say, and even to dessert at 6:30 that night at my grandmother’s. I was still mournful for the fact that I would never know what my grandpa would have been in his 70s with great-grandchildren, but after taking a hot shower, resting and meditating for a bit, and destrsctibg myself with funny videos that I truly enjoyed, I started to feel a weight lifted from my mind, heart, and digestive system

(that’s were the physical symptoms were, but I’m not saying coping skills cured any kind of physical illness, because there was none).

There was nothing significant that happened the rest of the week in regards to my grandfather’s memory, but I did take my brother who’s still a kid ice skating which was fun for the most part.

As far as Christmas…

As of today, it is new year’s eve, Eve, and Christmas is over, but I still have holiday spirit! This year, Christmas was quite unusual for my family. Due to family drama stuff, we had to celebrate Christmas several days earlier than usual and with only one of my siblings and I. On top of that no pictures were taken. I did get something I have been wanting for 2 years though so that was nice (it’s a instax link 2 and I have already printed so many photos!)

I was sad for some different reasons but I realize now it was mostly due to my inability to cope well with changes to my holiday traditions. There was the fact that I’m used to it snowing long before and during the holidays but it didn’t this year. Having Christmas earlier and only with a small portion of my large family made it unusual, and my grandma spent Christmas in the hospital this year which worried me. On top of all that, the traditions I had built up since moving out of my parent’s place had to be changed since moving back in to live with my family again.

Usually, around the holidays I build a gingerbread house with my brothers, I bake those pre made Christmas cookie doughs, I watch holiday movies and specials with my birth mom via Facebook messenger and holding my phone up to my laptop so she can see it, and I usually have Christmas on Christmas with all my siblings (in my adoptive family) decorating my apartment was also a special part of the holidays for me.

This year my brothers didn’t want to build a gingerbread house, which was tough, but I had to remember they are getting older and don’t always want to do the same stuff. I wasn’t able to make cookies this year, not for any specific reason, it just didn’t happen. I watched some stuff with my mom, which was nice, but I had to remember it was unhealthy how much we talked in previous years, so I had to limit our calling, which was hard because I felt guilty. (these are still feelings I am working through). The final thing that was different was that this year we didn’t have my big tree to decorate, and the family tree was put in my brother’s room this year so the new puppy didn’t get to it, but we never ended up finishing decorating it. To compensate, I was able to decorate a smaller tree that I got from the dollar store and put in my room.

So Christmas didn’t go exactly as planned for me and my family, but does any holiday, completely go as planned? I was also able to learn some important lessons about not being so rigid with my traditions. I still had holiday fun, but life had me celebrate it while working around life’s challenges, instead of celebrating the holidays at the expense of living a well balanced life.

So as you can probably tell, I celebrate secular Christmas (I also celebrate Yule in my own way for spiritual life), but I do believe in freedom of religion and everyone’s freedom to follow their own life path as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. Whatever holiday you celebrate I hope you have had a holiday season filled with peace and joy, and that you really challenge yourself to look at the traditions you have and determine if they still act as a source of good in your life, or if there may be some that no longer benefit you. That’s another thing I have had to do as I’ve gone through adulthood during all holidays, not just the winter ones.

Now that we have got the holidays out of the way, and with the new year 2024 approaching in just 2 days, I would like to talk about the future of this blog.

The Future of this Blog…

So, this blog will continue, I will continue adding resources and may add a challenge or 2. I have not always been consistent with my upload schedule, and I can not guarantee that I will be perfectly consistent moving forward, but I have big plans for 2024. It will be my hear of living life to the fullest.

And most importantly, I’m going to pour my time into self reflection and self discovery so I can be a fuller version of myself. I want you all to feel my love and support, and I want you to feel comfortable with me as a creator.

I will be opening myself up in a new way, sharing pieces of myself and my experiences trying to share things I have learned so others can learn from me and spend less time learning the hard way. I am going to increase my presence on the fight4mylife social media pages (Facebook, Tumblr, twitter (or X), and Instagram). I will try to do more with tiktok, but bear with me because I’m just not supper cool and I may not always understand all the trends.

I will end hear for now, but I want to hear from anyone who may be reading this post, what do you want to see from his blog moving into 2024? What topics do you want covered, and what do you expect a mental health and life blog to be like? Please comment your thoughts here or on the social media pages and I will respond. And have the happiest of new years!

It’s been about 3 years doing this blog and I’m still in the fight4mylife with each aspect of my health being impacted by how I care for my mental health. Join me here if you are looking for hope, connection, and good life lessons. Here you will not find expensive courses, or life coach sessions, you will just find me, a person doing this not for money, but to help as many people as I can during the time I have left on this earth. I want to help other mental health warriors who are in the fight for their lives (we all are to some extent whether we realize it or not). Life may get tough, but there is always hope. You are never alone and you don’t have to fight in silence or solitude.