I am experiencing new feelings this holiday season.  I am melancholy.  Truth be told, I am not a fan of the holiday season. I am not a scrooge. But from Halloween until the New Year, I have just felt the blues.  I used to love the holidays, really I did. But then something changed in me.  Maybe it was living alone after so many years.  Maybe it is being away from my family. Maybe it is working in retail this time of year.  Working in retail at the holidays is not the fun time it used to be.  I do have my urban family, but the feeling of the season just doesn't reside in me this year.  No, for me, I feel like I am closed for the holidays.....

I didn't buy magazines during this time of year.  For many reasons, but mainly because I am not making a holiday feast, I am not shopping for children, and I don't have a family of my own. The holidays have become very commercial.  This year was no exception, but with notable difference.  Stores that are normally closed on Thanksgiving were open for early holiday shopping. Deep discounts were taken early in hopes of luring in early buyers. And the worst was seeing Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving was even a consideration.  Yes, consumerism has taken over the spirit of the season.

I am not a religious person by any  means, but I do find solace in deep spirituality.  However, in the past I saw the holidays as a time for family and friends.  Traditions being made over dinners and, of course, gifts.  But it is different now.  Our gloomy economy and our ever trying world have given the holidays a whole new attitude.  Several years ago, during war time still, it was about sending items to the troops as they fight to protect our freedoms.  I have not been asked to participate in this act of kindness.  In the past, I saw far more campaigns on TV for toys for children, I have not seen this act of generosity.  In the past, I witnessed many more selfless acts of charity.  Now the attitude is that charity begins in the home.

I realize I could have organized a crusade to give children toys; or planned for a package to be sent oversees to a very deserving soldier.  In fact, last year I did give. I rallied my coworkers to help me with a family I adopted.  A woman with two small children, who had the courage to leave an abusive marriage.  We adopted them and gave them a very merry Christmas. But that was last year, and to say the time got away from me would be an excuse. The reality is, there was no budget for it.  Gloomy economy, remember.

So maybe, just maybe I need to honor these melancholy feelings.  There will be no exchanging of the gifts this year, the gift as the BFF put it, is time.  Time spent together.  What a great gift to give somebody, our time.  We will get together for a beautiful late lunch, the urbans and I.   We will recount this not so profitable retail season that we shared.  We will laugh, eat, drink, and make our own merriment.  I will say goodbye to the melancholy days I have had and get ready for a new year.  A year filled with hope and promise, and less somber days. Yes, I will enjoy the culmination of this get together as I say goodbye to this less than joyful holiday season.  Oh yeah, and I can't wait for the New Years issues of magazines........I have missed them.

I may be in the middle of a break up. Not the conventional kind, not the romantic sort.  No I may be going through a break up with a friend.  I don't think I ever really saw myself in this position, never thought it would happen to me. I should have seen the signs, they were revealing all the time.  I think I just chose to ignore them. But what makes this break up difficult is that I am not sure how I feel about it.  They say that there are two sides to every story, are there?  I wonder if this is my fault?  Absence in a friendship can make the heart grow sad.  I think both hearts are sad, but maybe for different reasons.

I think I am losing my oldest, and dearest friend.  Communication has been weak on my part.  There are many reasons, mostly I have just been so consumed by my own transformation and the things going on in my life.  I am doing a considerable amount of writing and seeing friends more socially. I have been in and out of what I call the perpetual cold for about four months now.  Coincidentally this is the same amount of time that this friendship has been on life support.

But what happens when a friendship changes?  Is it really better for all parties involved?  I think about my relationships with people, the boundaries we have set for each other, the limits and invisible lines created to remain in the friendship without letting it become a hardship.  This friendship I speak of was not a hardship, but perhaps I created one because I didn't set parameters.  Not the kind that make for battle lines to be drawn but rather, I didn't share enough of myself in the relationship.  I didn't let the other person see the changes I was going through.  I think when you are so close to someone it is harder than letting a stranger know what you are going through. 

I recently experienced this with the BFF.  I had not told him about the changes that have occurred in my life.  I finally revealed all of the excitement and the turmoil on a beautiful walk on Thanksgiving Day.  He was surprised to know some of how I was thinking and feeling.  It was then that I realized I am not allowing for full disclosure in my relationships with those closest to me.  Clearly a trait that I need to work on. How can my closest confidants know what is going on in my life if I don't share with them?  I leave them floundering, wondering what they did.  All the while it is simply me, responding to changes in my emotional environment.

I was lucky that the BFF was so understanding of my changes, both of us coming to an understanding that we must try to connect a little more often.  But where does that leave my friendship with my other friend? The friendship that is fighting for survival.  How do you revive what may have no hope of being revived? 

I am reminded of a blog I read about the breakup of a friendship, in the blog,  author Audrey Vitolins talks about how some friends need to be set free.  She writes a wonderful two part series on this very subject.  I don't want to set my friend free and I hope she doesn't either. But sometimes things have a way of working themselves out the way they are supposed to.  No matter how much you love and nurture it, sometimes it just isn't able to survive.  How do you let go, how do you grieve for something you let die.  And in the end, if you do come back to a place where you understand each other, how can things ever be the way they were? The way it was,  before life support.........