Welcome to the Holiday Blues

Christmas is supposed to be "the most wonderful time of the year." At least that's what the radio, movies, advertisements, and the media keep telling me. It's a time to spend with family and friends. To share and create memories.

So how come I've been feeling so down?

I'm not going to lie. I cried almost every day this week. It seems silly right?

Part of me was realizing that I needed to upgrade my tech and how pretty soon, everything I own will become obsolete. This should have been an obvious realization. After all, change seems to be the only constant in my life. Anyone who has ever seen an ad for Radio Shack from the 90s knows that everything they used to sell individually is available in a smartphone and/or laptop.

Did you guys know that the last VHS player was built in Japan this year? Yeah, VHS is pretty much gone know. If you have a bunch of home movies, you might want to consider making digital copies. Apple is ditching the analog headphones with their latest iPhone. DVDs players are become less common. Not to mention that kids today have no idea what a floppy disk is (they just think it's a universal symbol for "save").

I think the reason I'm so sensitive to all these changes is because I'm finally realizing how quickly time goes by when I'm not paying attention. I didn't realize until very recently that my loyal laptop from college was pushing seven years. It still works, but it's definitely having issues.

Ten years no long seems like a long time. When I was 15, I felt completely different from how I was at the age of 5. I can't say the same thing about looking back at my teens from my mid-twenties. I think a part of me realizes how much time has passed. I've grown a lot since I graduated college and even more since I graduated high school.

It probably doesn't help that I'm still constantly being mistaken as a teenager.


Feeling down at this time of year is not unusual. Between mass consumerism and realizing how much time has passed since you last had the time to take a breather. Time seemed endless as a kid. I felt like I had all the time in the world. I thought I could do anything and everything.

While setting up my Christmas decorations and cleaning my apartment, I found some of my old journals. I started rereading some of them. There's a lot of bad spelling and I had horrible handwriting, but it was interesting to see my inner thoughts as an 11 year old. I mostly wrote about food (go figure right).

As much as I would love to go back and relive all the good times and visit with friends and family who have passed away, I can't. I can only move forward. It's tough to let go of things and sometimes I've just got to accept the feelings I feel (crying and all) and be thankful for what is happening in the present.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Until next week...which also happens to be Christmas.

Welcome to Holiday Cards

Call me old fashioned, but I love getting snail mail. No, not bills. I mean snail mail from friends and family. There's something about getting home after a long day and finding a letter in my mailbox.

I have a few friends who write me letters (and I write them back). We usually include a quick update on our lives, a few plans for the future, and the latest book we're reading. We still try to stay connected via social media and texting, but I love the feeling of pen to paper.

I like sending holiday cards to my family, especially the family I haven't seen in a while and I know I won't see before the end of the year. I include a quick update about my life. Sometimes I add in a few details about how my family is doing.

As I write these letters I start to realize how much has stayed the same and how much really has changed. Time seems to be slipping more and more away from me as I'm getting older. There are many days where I think that it was only last year that I was still at school, but really it's been nearly four years since I graduated.

I'm not going to lie, I can't wait to see what the future holds, but part of me can't let go of the past. Maybe it's because the adult world is a lot more complicated than young me ever realized. Time always seemed to move so slowly when I was a child. It felt like things would always be as they were. I don't think I knew any better.

"Time waits for no one." I don't remember who said this, but I remember it was in the movie Girl Who Leapt Through Time. The movie is about a young girl who suddenly discovers she can go back in time. Instead of using this power for anything heroic, she uses it to eat the pudding her sister stole from her and avoid awkward conversations with a boy she likes. In the end she realizes that she can't keep leaping through time and has to accept the past and move towards the future.

The past is the past and the future is going to show up sooner rather than later. As the years go on, my list of holiday card recipient is going to change and likely shorter. Nothing in life is preminant, even if I wish it was.

I hope everyone is having a good holiday season so far. Now I need to finish these letters, before I realize it's 2017.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y'all like hearing from me.

Until next week.