I'm writing this on Christmas Eve, about 24 hours before you'll be reading it. I read through diary entries that are barely eighteen months old; their poignancy is either down to how sad I was at the time or how fresh those wounds really still are. My handwriting is exactly the same because arguably, not much time has passed.
Christmas comes around so quickly and when it does, it's like an assignment you knew was due and yet tried to prolong the timing of. Christmas Eve is the night before the submission date and you try, desperately, to cram it all in. You begin watching the films you've been meaning to turn into a tradition but then realise you've left it too late, so you turn to a special you've seen a dozen times before. On Christmas day, you're expected to be merry. Be so full of gratitude that any underlying melancholy is drowned out no matter how pervasive it is. But it's so exhausting living your life that way.
This has been the first Christmas where I've removed any pressure for the season and holiday to be perfect and decided to just go with the flow. I don't need to purchase the tealight version of my favourite candle; giving into that internal expectation means committing to a shopping trip that I don't have the time for. I don't have to watch every single one of my favourite Christmas specials. I watch about half now, and whatever was left behind can be watched next year. The burdens of the holiday seem to disappear when you admit that achieving happiness is actually quite tricky - there's probably a science behind it which I never bothered to learn because I was convinced I didn't need it. Trying to please all your family and friends at once means you're busy enough to ignore the parts of you that ache.
I've learnt that joy isn't a convention; it comes in so many different colours, not all of them red and green. It doesn't always come perfectly wrapped with tiny silver bells and candy canes attached to the ribbon. Sometimes, it's an inside joke between yourself and a family member. It might just be your favourite song playing on the radio just when you need it the most. I'm not saying those things are solutions at all; the human mind can hurt itself so deeply but there's always something worth reaching for. As my favourite film illustrates, life is messy and tangled and people are flawed and downright selfish, sometimes at the best of times. But it's fine, because life would be dreadfully boring if it wasn't. Love Actually perfectly demonstrates that we'll probably never get this life thing right but it's never not worth trying.
July will mark three years of Train of Thought. I said on my 24th birthday that this blog would have to take a step back, and it has; I don't love it any less, but my priorities are very different to what they were when I was 22. I'm sure yours are, too, which is why I felt safe to step back. I'm still active on Instagram most days and I still write everyday, and I think of this blog and everything it's done for me all the time. Decisions I made a year ago have proven to be a step forward in the right direction. Things are much better then they were compared to when I spent my first Christmas with you all, and I suppose I can't really ask for more.
See you next year. <3
Karisma
xxx
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