I'm not just being a sap. See over the past couple of years some family members have well, really gone south. No they haven't moved below the Mason Dixon line like yours truly. They're pretty sick in various ways and for various reasons. It's really sad to watch people who you have literally known your whole life deteriorate. I think nearly everyone can relate; maybe they were indestructible to you, maybe they were just always around. Either way they were a constant in your life that is now changing and it's different and weird (and not a good weird).
I will be honest and say that I've personally have had varying reactions to this over the years which include varying levels of maturity. I will leave that at that but I will add that this holiday season it's been very clear -- and more than okay -- the holidays are just simply not about me. Or even my brother or my parents.
It's funny, the evolution of the focus of holidays. When you're little they're literally ALL about you. Everyone showers you with attention and gifts. Then as you get older the focus shifts to the younger children in your family. If you had a family spread and dynamic like mine, there were a few years in your late teens through your mid-twenties when the holidays were just a happy time with adults who enjoyed each other's company and got boozed up together. Then the holidays shift again. And the focus becomes not on you, not on the generation even just above you, but on the much older generation.
While I am back at home I feel that a large part of my role over this holiday is to make other people happy since well, this might be the last holiday season some see.
With this in mind the holiday season has also made me think about things in my life a bit differently. Over the past few weeks in particular I've become very aware of just how fortunate I am. I am a healthy, young woman with a very good job -- no, a career -- and wonderful family and friends all over the country. I challenged myself to up and move hundreds of miles away from the areas I knew and I have been successful thus far in my job, made loads of friends, and have really settled in nicely so much that I no longer feel "new" in Atlanta; I feel at home in Atlanta.
This is not all simple good fortune as I've worked hard at it. But I am so appreciative of the lot I've drawn in life and the wonderful people I've met along the way to help continue to make it remain so great.
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