Holiday Blues

If there’s one thing I can’t relate to, is whenever people are excited for the holidays. They’re just waiting for Halloween to be over with so that “The Holiday Season” can officially begin.

I’m not sure I’m ever more generally depressed during the year, than I am at the start of November.

I guess I can attribute it to some specific reasons. Like the stress of extra expenses for gifts. The nostalgia of childhood trips to Florida to spend a full week with cousins I only got to see once a year, if even that. Husband having to work extra long hours and the actual holidays because his job is merciless. All the extra time that you need to somehow fit in, in an already overloaded schedule, for all the obligatory holiday festivities.

Yes those expenses are always stressful, but even when you plan ahead you still have to do the research, the shopping, the wrapping, etc.

Yes, the memories of those trips will always make me smile, but they also make me extremely sad because even if I could afford to book us all flights to go tomorrow, all my cousins are grown and scattered around with their own families and commitments. As much as I’d love to see them at any age, childhood is still over.

Yes, anytime my husband is not home on even the smallest of holidays, it makes me sad. The extra money helps money stress a little, but I would much rather have him home.

Losing my sister and nieces back when I turned 16 has never helped the situation either, but that pretty much adds a note of sadness to literally everything in my life all year round, not just now.

And while for some, the festivities is what they live for, I find it to be such a chore. I don’t care for shopping in general, it’s cute to have the tree and decorations up for a little while, but I could not enjoy putting it all up any less. And sorry not sorry, I’m just not a Christmas music person. It just amplifies my sadness.

So yes, there’s all those very specific reasons, but it also feels like there’s something else under the surface that I can never quite put my finger on. Like if none of those reasons existed for me, I would still feel depressed anyway.

Maybe I’ll never figure it out, but it would have been nice if I hadn’t had such a crippling bout with impostor syndrome last year so I could have been so much farther along at this point than currently I am.

I’m still on track to meet the deadline I’ve set for myself this year, but I would be lying if I said that pushing through the oppressively heavy depression I’m feeling right now, isn’t incredibly challenging and adding exponentially to the pressure.

Tags: #blogger, #depression, #entrepreneur, #holidays, #mentalhealth, #struggling, #wingingit