The Holidays Don’t Erase What You’ve Been Through
When the world expects joy, but you’re still carrying yesterday’s pain. There’s something about the holidays that can make the things we’ve spent all year trying to manage feel a little heavier. The memories. The regrets. The people we’ve lost. The relationships that never became what we hoped they would. The mistakes we wish we could take back. And sometimes, the version of ourselves we still haven’t quite learned to forgive. Everywhere you look, there are reminders of what the holidays are supposed to feel like. Families gathered around tables. Smiling faces. Beautiful decorations. Songs about peace, love, and happiness. But not everyone walks into the holiday season carrying those feelings. Some people walk into it carrying trauma. Others carry guilt, shame, or grief. And some are simply exhausted from spending another year trying to hold themselves together. The holidays don’t magically erase what you’ve survived. And they don’t require you to pretend it never happened...