To whom it may concern:

Dearest blog readers (if you even still bother coming back here),

Please don't give up on me.

The last month and a half, I'm finally realizing in hindsight, have been quite hard for me and I haven't been much up for writing and reflecting.

As is the case for most in December, there's been a lot going on.  And I love the holiday season so much that I have a tendency to just throw myself 110% into whatever I can to squeeze the maximum amount of holiday cheer possible out of the days between Thanksgiving and New Years. And despite the things that have made this one unexpectedly harder than usual for me to endure at times, I've still managed to find myself often giddy with childlike excitement about things like stringing popcorn that to others may be tedious, but to me are magical and celebratory. I get all starry-eyed and mushy at a beautiful display of Christmas lights. I enjoy all the decor and the shopping for the people I love and creating gifts and thoughtful words for the ones that are most important to me. I've spent an inordinate amount of time cutting out hundreds of felt circles to make a wreath for my mom, a labor of love that no other time of year could inspire me to finish. I taught myself a new skill to create a gift for Emily that I think I'm more excited to give than she may be to recieve.  And, I made my first independent batch of glogg without burning the house down, which turned out wonderfully and was so pleased to be able to share one of my favorite family traditions with my friends.

There's also been a seemingly endless stream of committments and parties cramming my schedule to maximum capacity; a growing list of people to shop for and not enough money or time or energy. There's been loneliness and impatience and guilt and the fear of missing what Christmas is truly all about. I've been caught up in the hustle and bustle, the parties and arts and crafts and baking of the holiday season.  I've spent a few relaxing and beautiful weekends away, had my favorite Christmas playlist playing pretty consistently in the background of whatever I've been doing, and watched lots of the best holiday movies.  I finished finals, putting another quarter behind me with eager anticipation for what comes next and I've played less-than-aggressive defense against yet another sinus infection and a minor and (thankfully short lived) bit of blue-Christmas-depression.  From what I hear, that sort of thing is commonplace for the holiday season as we get older.  Christmas is no longer just the glistening and sparkling worry-free time of the year for adults that it used to be for us during our childhood.  It often brings with it a dark shadow that covers over some of the brightest parts of this season when and where we least expect it. 

I'm reminded this morning of the brilliance of C.S. Lewis' (in my opinion) best work, Screwtape Letters.  When the joy of this season seems dulled by a dark shadow, Lewis' creative insight into how the spiritual dimension is in a constant match of tug-of-war for our hearts and minds has helped me to realize the ways I've been letting the darkness creep in.  I've surrendered unintentionally some critical footholds and am just now scrambling to get them back.  If you haven't yet read that book, or it's been a while, I can't stress enough how much I believe that you should head out and pick it up as soon as you possibly can. I'm not big on the whole good vs. evil, darkness and light, spiritual warfare stuff but the picture that Lewis paints of how the bad stuff weasels it's way into our lives and grabs ahold of us is a practical and humbling reminder for me during this time of year as it becomes harder for me to always face the season with a joyful, reverent and peaceful glow about me that I so wish I just posessed.  In many ways I've just been lazy, allowing bad thoughts and worries to take the place of the things that I so wish I was focused on at the moment.

For the most part, right now, I am struggling with change.  Rather than embracing it and seeing the goodness of where God has me at the moment and the faithful provision and blessing that defines my days, I've been choosing to become fixated on how uncomfortable the hundreds of changes that seem to be surrounding my day to day existence are making me.  Some of the changes are so minor that I actually don't understand how they manage to stress me out.  Others are quite large and scary and hard to deal with; things that are sad, frustrating or just ambiguous, but I still ought to know better than to cling to them in fear, letting them weigh me down unneccessarily.

I'm off this afternoon to a snowy white Christmas in Chicago and had a few moments to just breathe during which I realized that I miss writing.  I've neglected to process quite a bit in favor of worry, and for some reason this morning I decided that enough was enough.  I'm beginning to embrace the changes that 2010 seems to want to bring to me.  Clinging stubbornly to what used to be "normal" won't do me or anyone else any bit of good.  For me, avoiding writing was a major tool of resistence.  So, hopefully, getting the inital return-to-blogging post out of the way will ease the pressure a bit and pave the way for a more faithful, courageous and thoughtful approach to the new year and the many, many changes it will bring.

Thanks for reading, those of you that have stuck around.  I appreciate you.