So This is Christmas...

This is a lyric from the song "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" that sadly strikes me as very relevant this particular holiday season:

And so this is Christmas

For weak and for strong

For rich and the poor ones

The world is so wrong

I've heard this song as often as any other and they all sort of mesh together at some point, but for this blog I read all of the lyrics and realized this is really an anti-war anthem more than a traditional Christmas carol. Regardless, it's the "The world is so wrong" line that grabbed me.

Without doubt there are many things "wrong" in our world, but as the political pendulum swings as it always does, I want to post what I wrote on the back of our photo Christmas cards this year.

I feel I've been pretty open about my mental health and work struggles this year, but I don't want to believe that the world is so wrong. Has it been my best year ever? No, but honestly I struggle to remember an entire year that didn't include disappointment, loss, or pain. Sure, maybe when I was six or seven years old the world seemed stable and consistent, but I know for sure that the Christmas of 1976 was unsettling because that was the first Christmas with my youngest sibling, my brother who's six years younger than I am. Being the oldest of the Porath clan, I've heard stories about how I pouted when my younger sister was born and the world didn't revolve around just me anymore. 

So I'm pretty sure there has always been disappointment, loss, or pain in any given year. When you're a little kid these setbacks are age-appropriate, at least I hope they are for others reading this. At age 54, the disappointment, loss, and pain feel SO MUCH MORE intense than the tantrums I threw when I was six and naturally so. If I still threw tantrums at this age, that would be really fucking weird. 

Bringing this all together, I'm trying to say that life is not fair, shit happens, and as we mature, the unfairness and shit mature with us. At age seven I wasn't worried about car insurance, now at age fifty-four, sometimes I am. I came to terms with the birth of my siblings decades ago, love them to death and am thrilled they are a part of my life. 

My intent for 2026 is to manage the challenges that will undoubtedly happen, not make mountains out of mole-hills, and reach out for help when I need it. 2025 showed me how much I need to lean on others which I have fought against so hard I burned out. I was a pile of smoking embers as summer waned but I got  help and I need to keep up that momentum. That will help me find peace, joy, and to take better care of myself (I have a terrible habit of working harder than my patients and that has stopped since I started my new job as an inpatient therapist at a free standing psych hospital).

I will close with this lyric from the same song I've been yammering about:

And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young