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The Journey Home

Blogger shouldn't have a view count per blog post in the settings. It's not like anyone is reading my nonsense anymore but me. But I'm what matters I suppose. Thank you Obi-wan Blog-nobi, you are in fact my only hope. Well probably not, but you're a help. 
Anyway, it is that time of year again where I question if God or the universe manifests about 25% more humans and cars. The silly season indeed. The shopping ramps up, there seems to be all these extra people everywhere and extra cars on the road. And everyone is impatient and expressing their inner jerk. Just yesterday at the pharmacy a guy reversed out of the very small carpark all the while hanging out his car window yelling obscenities at a fellow motorist. I am not sure what it was all about, but my initial thoughts were, "Ahh the sounds of Christmas jerkery." We're in for a couple more weeks of it. And then it will turn into New Year jerkery, and back to school jerkery. But nothing quite measures up to the Yuletide jerkery. Christmas is a bit like having a wedding every year, except you wake up in October or November and realise you have left everything to the last minute. 
It is not really a holiday conducive to mental health challenges. This year I am grossly unorganised and unprepared. Sometimes I want to cancel the whole thing. Every year I threaten to transfer all responsibility to my partner for organising Christmas and all the gifts and shopping. But I know it would end up in a very disappointed group of children on Christmas morning. The mental load is real and the inequity of responsibilities is frankly a balancing act that almost always means more weight on my side of the scale. And Christmas just makes it all that much intense. I always organise and buy gifts for my partners family. I don't think he has ever once managed to organise the gifts himself in the years we have been together. Even when he purchases a gift card for his parents, it is because I suggested it. Anyway. I don't want to end up in a snowballing rant about inequality in partnership and family. I'll just get it done and then gift wrap my simmering, bitter resentment as his Christmas present. Seems a fair deal.
But before the silly season well and truly ramps up, the process of wrapping up school shenanigans has to be tackled. Usually involves, Christmas parties, a few extracurricular activities, and presentation days. So many presentation days. I have lots of children and it is a flurry of presentation days in our family. This year I decided to only attend if a child would be receiving an award. One of our high schoolers was the recipient of an environment award, so one presentation done and dusted. We are in the home stretch and as much as I am looking forward to the school year ending, it is always a double edged sword, because no school means a house full of children. Which is busy, noisy and messy. Relentlessly so. School holidays are not really conducive to stable mental health either. 
And I have been relatively stable. I have been feeling good even. A few joyful moments here and there. The wheels fell off this weekend though. Too much box ticking, a Velcro three year old, constant "Mum, Mum, Mum...", sprinkle in a social event and all my energy and facade of wellness and stability came crashing down. Ending in floods of tears and emotional outburst. I clearly have been trying to do too many things and the stress of extra Christmas stuff adds to it too. Our Christmas will be different this year. It has always been a low key event, but this year even the children's gifts will be low key as well. It just hasn't been possible to take my usual approach with organising gifts. So it has been haphazard and there will be a lot less than previous years under the tree. But I don't think that's a bad thing, Christmas is not about how many presents you get. I am looking forward to the year wrapping up. I am ready to close the door on this dreadfully challenging year, it has hands down been the worst time of my life. I am beginning to feel a shift and feel hopeful for what 2020 will bring. I will be going into my 40th year of life. Virtually half my life behind me, half in front of me. All going well. I heard once that a midlife crisis is more a spiritual crisis, as it is the farthest away our souls are from God. If you think of life as an arc, we leave the divine ether when we are born and return to it when we die. Midlife is when we are tethered as far as possible away from our divine home. Something like that anyway. I can't remember where I picked up that concept, but it resonates with me. I feel the beginning of the slow journey home has begun. As Ram Dass said, "We're all just walking each other home".

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