for the ones who are not okay.

It's not like I have any unique thoughts to offer grieving people for whom holidays are difficult. But still. Sometimes you just need it.


It may not feel okay, but it's okay.

It's okay.

It's okay that holidays make you anxious and afraid and sad.

It is okay that the faces of family togetherness on Facebook make you ache.

It is okay that you feel so especially beaten and broken for feeling this way during a celebratory time.

It's okay that you get sick of faking it, for the sake of not having to be alone.

It's okay, to feel so alone.

It's okay, these words without poetry.

It is okay, to want to give up. It really is. Yes,some people are dying, and they would give anything for life; is your struggle disrespectful to them? I don't know. People read the word suicide and feel as though you've handed them some responsibility for keeping your feet on the earth; do you keep it secret and silent as it grows? I don't know.

The struggle is okay.

It's okay, to have maybe lived a life full of Fighting To Recover From Bad Things, and to find yourself facing yet another set of recoveries and just feel so exhausted with the struggle, the blame of which you cannot speak, the rage which is easier than the limp acknowledgement of injury.

It's okay, conversely, to have maybe lived an idyllic life, only to have everything about you torn up and tossed to the wind by some horrible thing, that you feel like you should be able to get back to yourself already, that you see the way people look at you so differently, expectantly, bewildered and maybe a little impatient, and you hardly know what to tell them, let alone yourself.

It's okay to know that you'll recover from these things, but to still feel the pull in your bones toward Home.

It's okay, even when your heart is screaming at you to get your shit together in the glow of Christmas lights, to feel so unable to believe anymore that God knows what he's doing. It's okay to contemplate the birth of a baby a zillion years ago and feel nothing right now.

You can't talk yourself out of it. You really can't believe your way out of it, either.

So what else can it be?

It's okay. Take a deep breath and let yourself know it.

And no matter how it looks to anyone else outside you: Sometimes, every beat of your heart is a victory. Every spark of motion in your bloodstream. Every breath you choose to draw. Every sob in the dark, pushing oxygen into your lungs. Victory upon victory upon victory, of your choosing. When you can't do any more than that: it's okay. Whatever his greater purpose was,it's exactly what that baby did, a zillion years ago. Breathe in, cry, breathe out. Victory.

There is no hope in denial, in self-shaming, in blaming, in performance. But when you know that you're not okay: it's okay.