I am sorry if you are sad this season.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you buried a child this year.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you have a parent in the hospital.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you are awaiting a life-changing, terrifying surgery.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, people have disappointed you.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, COVID-19 has completely changed your life and business.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you have felt loneliness and loss.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you are so, so tired from the last two years.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you are afraid of what next year could bring to the world.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you have a home that should be filled with children and instead is filled with pain.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you will have an empty seat at the table where a parent should be.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you fall asleep thinking about a health diagnosis.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you have someone in your life determined to ruin your happiness.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you see your own child heading down a terrible path and you don’t know what to do to make it better.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you want to cry when hearing, “I’ll be home for Christmas,” because home feels like the last place you want to be.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you are grieving a marriage that was supposed to last forever.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you had to cancel plans because a Covid test came back positive.

I am sorry if, like someone I love, you thought life would look different—extremely different.

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As we go through this season hearing songs of joy to the world and seeing wooden red and green signs that showcase words like hope and peace, your heart may feel heavy.

This year my heart feels heavy to me.

The long weariness of everything feeling complicated and missing people at my own table has hit hard this year.

Can I focus on the good things in my life and practice gratitude? Of course. Can I comfort myself knowing I am lucky and chastising myself for being unhappy when others have it much worse off than me? Yes. Can I push back feeling sorry for myself and fake it until I make it? Absolutely.

And, someday I will. I’ll wake up lighter and be excited to tackle what is ahead. But, it’s not today.

Today I hold space and grace for my own pain and others’ pain. Today I grieve for the people I miss and the people who miss me. Today I grieve the pain of imperfect health and imperfect people. Today I grieve all the things I should have done and all the things others should have done.

I grieve the anxiety and confusion. I grieve the fights and the fuss and the division and all the problems of the past that have created pain in the present. I grieve the days when hope feels far away and darkness comes to breakfast.

I grieve the days of getting the hard phone call and having to move forward in the midst of sadness. I grieve the way life was “supposed” to be and the one-sided story of all my books with happy endings. I grieve the conversation where nothing I say can make it better.

I grieve the distractions I have used to push my own sadness away, and I grieve the problems I couldn’t solve. I grieve the uncontrollable and the things I know I should not want to control. I grieve the things I can’t make better and the tears I can’t wipe away. I grieve the split decisions that changed everything and the long, drawn out indecisions where nothing changed despite the years passing by.

I grieve.

And, if you are grieving too, you are not alone.

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