Yingle Yule!

I don’t really celebrate Christmas — for me, the Winter Solstice is more significant because it means the days start getting longer, and who wouldn’t want to celebrate that?

Tuesday was the second anniversary of my father’s passing. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I think we’ve got our happy memories of him when he was younger, and that gives us comfort. The experience of helping care for him in his final years did affect me deeply, and as a result, I’ve been focussing a lot this year on checking my well-being and giving myself permission to put things on hold if I’m not able to do them today.

I do worry a bit about my mother, who will be 82 in a few month’s time, but so far, she is fit and well. If anything, she regularly gets comments about how much younger she looks. 🙂 She got her first vaccination shot last Friday, and will go back and get her second in the New Year.

Unfortunately, my sister couldn’t be with us this Christmas. She’s a schoolteacher, and found out last week that one of the kids in her class tested positive for Coronavirus, so she’s isolating at her home. She went for a test yesterday, after noticing her sense of smell was dulled. If she does have it, she’s the best able of the three of us to deal with it. My mum’s age, and my underlying health condition which requires medication to regulate my immune system, means that we’re both at considerable risk.

This week, I’ve been taking stock of what I have got in my life, and being thankful for it all. While my situation isn’t great, I take some solace in knowing that I have things under control for the foreseeable future. My priority is to build myself up both mentally and physically so that I’m more resilient for when tougher times do come.

I won’t lie, I’ll be glad when 2020 is behind me. Sometimes, I have struggled with the anxiety and depression that has hit me whenever I see or hear the news or witnessed the apparent uncaring of others. My faith in the underlying goodness of humanity has been sorely tested. But I have hope that this year has increased the numbers of those who do give a damn.