Weekly Round-Up: The Christmas Edition
Time for this week’s round-up of the best of the blog posts which I’ve read over the past week. These are the posts that have moved me, taught me something, inspired me, and which I’ve wanted to share with you. Don’t forget if you have written a post which you would like readers to see, just leave a comment below.
Starting this week’s round up with some holiday themed posts from JoAnn, Maureen, Connie, Barbara, Abigail, Jennifer, Carolyn, Dee and Lisa.
Timely post from Elizabeth on balancing fear and anxiety with gratitude.
Megsie writes this week of learning to embrace “The Suck”.
Check out Ilene‘s post on Living Beyond Breast Cancer, which covers tips on how you can use journals and creative expression for emotional well-being when faced with a cancer diagnosis.
For those who celebrate Christmas, it was a strange celebration for many of us this year. I spent my first Christmas on my own. I won’t say it was easy, but I survived it and I know I wasn’t alone in finding this year’s festivities, without the company of loved ones, extremely hard. All we can do is try to look towards the new year with some hope of brighter days on the horizon.
Until next week,
Yours with much love always
Marie xxx
Thank you for recognizing the LBBC post. If we look at most of the posts this week, they’re about how the adjective “alone” added to the holiday spirit. Spending time alone isn’t a gift, like cancer isn’t a gift. We’ve been so indoctrinated to buy things, to give things, to get things. This year, I got things from Craig. This year my stepson drive up from the Bay Area after testing negative for Covid and making sure to stay home from work. I think that was a better gift than any gifts one can receive. Craig remembered to think ahead and wrap presents for me. He’d gotten his gift weeks ago. My stepson grew up enough to respect my illness and I felt loved. The feeling of love, the sense of not being alone – my best friend Michael, who had strokes seven years ago only comes over to our house and mostly works with Craig. I’ve been in and out of insomnia – yesterday no sleep today falling asleep on the sofa then moving to the bed after making us some soup about 3 am, every thug seems upside down, inside out, no crowd at our usual Christmas party only four of us, my son and friend knowing they didn’t have to be alone. I suppose it’s those gifts that matter the most. Losing one of our virtual friends recently, firmly established my respect of the time we do have in these bodies and in this life. Here one minute gone the next. Making sure I have a last tweet and blog post, saying goodbye before I’m gone, privately, brought deep tears and remembrance of failures – thus my poem on the https://cancerbus.com/ site. That’s how life really feels at the moment. Failure needing to be dropped like baggage I can no longer carry from day to day. So this holiday wasn’t so bad after all.
I love you, Marie,and believe this: when you’re remembered and thought of lovingly by so many who may not physically be with your you’re never alone.
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Oh Ilene, what an incredibly beautiful gift your words are to me. I am too choked up to write more right now but know that I treasure this gift beyond all others – except perhaps a certain tiffany necklace 😉 which has not left my neck since I put it on there xxxx
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