Feeling Like Shit on Christmas

While everyone else is having Christmas parties next door, I am sick in bed, alone, and sad. It sounds so pitiful that I actually laughed out loud while writing that sentence.

For real, it sucks not feeling well while missing out on a special holiday. It feels as though the expectations for this day are always so high that anything less is a personal and moral failure.

I spent the past few hours feeling sorry for myself, wondering why today of all days I have to feel unwell. I wondered if I should just suck it up and go to the party anyway. Christmas is only once a year, after all.

My host sister and cousin came by with food, hoping to make me feel a bit better in whatever ways they could. Sitting next to me on the couch, with a mix of care and pity in their eyes, they weren’t sure what else to do to fix the situation. Just having them there honestly made me feel a bit sadder that I was missing out.

In that moment, my host cousin said to me, “It makes me sad that you’re feeling sad. You’re usually happy all the time.” And strangely enough, this made me feel a lot better. I usually am pretty happy the majority of the time.

The days that aren’t marked by a special celebration, which are probably around 95% of our lives (maybe, I didn’t actually do the math here), carry little to no expectations in relation to the other 5% of days. But, they encompass far more of our existence.

When there’s no expectation to be happy, no pressure weighing on my shoulders, I usually am. It’s okay to have a few shitty holidays and birthdays (I cried on my birthday, too this year, but that’s a whole other story) throughout the course of our lives. It’s okay to sometimes miss out on the 5%. What is much more special is finding consistent contentment in the mundane which comprises the majority of our time.

I am sad right now, and my body is in pain, but this feeling is only temporary. There will be more holidays to enjoy in the future. And, more likely than not, there will be more holidays that I spend in bed feeling sorry for myself.

None of this detracts from the fact that each day we are alive is a special gift, whether it be Christmas or a gross and rainy Monday. If we are able to find a degree of happiness the majority of the time, then that’s really all that matters.

Feeling guilty or bad about possessing negative feelings on special days won’t make the experience any better. Preventing yourself from crying when that’s all you want to do won’t erase the sadness. Our feelings are valid, no matter the occasion. And, if I feel like shit sometimes, then I will embrace the shit out of it because I know, in the grand scheme of things, one bad day is nothing compared to one happy life.