Can I Just Skip Christmas and all It's Hub-bub This Year?

I've known for a while that I'm exhausted--mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically. A few weeks ago, something happened, and I began to think about skipping Christmas this year. That's a huge move for me--one not taken lightly. Christmas has been an issue for me for many years, probably since my children were little. It's time for family, and two divorces in my early years kind of wrecked that simple idea and complicated Christmas, along with all the other holidays. But Christmas was the one that hurt the most. I think it must be the high expectations of the season.

Then my kids grew up and had families of their own. Jim and I married, and Christmas (even with it's hangups) managed to be ok. But over the last 5 years, it's gotten complicated again. Now divorce has touched my children's lives, and--well, damn it, it just hurts too darn much.

And I'm tired. I'm tired of pretending it's a wonderful season. I'm tired of working so damned hard to make sure everyone has a wonderful time--and never being really sure. I'm just tired.

And now, added to it this year, we're trying to get Mother scheduled for two knee replacements before January 1. Just thinking about it all wears me out. So, a neighbor said, "Skip it. Leave. Go somewhere." It sounds so simple, but all the voices go round and round in my head telling me I can't do that--but, you know what? I think I'm going to try.

It's been a hard 5 years--and I'm just tired. I've been reading Clarrisa Pinolka Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves again. It is food for the soul--the woman's soul. Tonight I read a little tale called "The Three Hairs"--a very short story. It's basically about the woman's animus losing focus and energy, and becoming exhausted. Then animus, you know, that "male" part of us women that's able to take charge and take care of it all, well darn it all, it just gives out. Estes writes that women are usually surprised when it does, but it always does. And the only answer to that is rest. Estes writes, "Her animus is worn out and in need of being rocked by La Que Sabe. The woman whos idea or energy has waned, whithered or ceased altogether needs to know the way to this old woman healer, and must carry the tired animus there for renewal."

La Que Sabe is the 2-million-year-old woman, the one who knows. "To be held in her arms before her fire is restorative, reparative. It is to this fire and to her arms that the old man drags himself [or is dragged]"...and her job is simply to hold him and to rock him until he's refreshed.

My animus is exhausted--trying to hold a crumbling family together, taking care of my mom (yes, I love her dearly, but it's a lot of work), and trying to hold everything together and make it all work.

So, I think I'm gonna take "him" to Arizona--to a little one-person cabin in the woods--just me and "him" for Christmas. I'm even considering driving--I'm just ready for a good space of time away from everything and everyone. No phones. No computer. No doctors appointments. No grocery shoping. Not even any "girls' days out". No Jeopardy. No moment's notice and everything has to change. Just me and my old worn-out animus going on a road trip and sitting in the mountains of Arizona for a whole week. Leaving BEFORE Christmas and not coming home until AFTER New Years. God, that sounds delicious. I think I really want to do this--that is if we can get all the timing to work out. I'm gonna try. I think I really must before I crater.

What is it in that sweet voice inside
That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time
For you to compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.

Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is sacred.

~ Hafiz (translated by Daniel Ladinsky)