Fear and Worry

I have a confession to make. For the past month, since Halloween, I have been fearing the holidays. I did not want anything to do with Thanksgiving or Christmas. I even went so far as to tell one of my friends in early November that I wanted to take a nap and wake up with it being January 2018. Living alone with only one family member in Pittsburgh who acknowledges me, I feared spending Thanksgiving and Christmas alone. I remembered the wonderful holidays of my youth where I had two families to spend the Holidays with and even more recently the early years of my last marriage when the ex and I would have much to celebrate and feared being alone. The fear consumed me. It made me miserable at times. I made no plans for Thanksgiving other than to have roast beef, my favorite food, and go out driving for Lyft a bit. Like the thorns in the photo, I chose to focus on the negative instead of focusing on the rose shoot, which is symbolic of beauty and love.

What ended up happening yesterday was completely different than what I had feared. I woke up, wrote a blog post about being thankful for many of the blessings which I have received in life and texted a dozen or more friends wishing them a Happy Thanksgiving. My phone then began to blow up with texts back from my friends wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving and thanking me for our friendship. Then I made a joking post about being the only non-vegetarian in the USA not eating turkey yesterday. A friend responded asking why and when I told her why, requested that I have dinner with her and her daughter. This friend literally lives 5 minutes from one of my best friend’s mom’s house and so I then called him to inquire where he was and he told me to stop in as well. So instead of spending the day alone, like I had feared for a whole month, I spent it with my dear friends. It turns out that I had a third invite in a text group that a friend of mine runs that I rarely ever check!!!

For an entire month I wasted energy, time and thoughts on fear of something that did not even end up happening!!! Instead the opposite occurred. Instead of spending the day alone, I spent it surrounded by my friends who love me. Lesson learned.

Gloria in excelsis Deo!!!