Merry Fucking Holidays Or Something

Let your hearts be light enough to not punch anyone this year.

Ah, the holidays.

Time for joy and merriment and, while in the middle of the endless grind of a pandemic, a healthy fucking dose of exhaustion with a side of despair, ennui and malaise.

I don’t hate the holidays, exactly. As a kid I fucking loved them. The lights and the smells and the twinkle of starlight on snow and sledding and hot beverages (cider always because hot chocolate is fucking terrible). I love wrapping presents and feeling the joy and wonder of kids and the fact that most of the time, the holidays help us all act a little less like dickheads to one another if only for a short while.

But I confess that as an adult, the holiday wonderment is always tinged with a little bit of sadness and lament. Distance from family and loved ones combined with the faded pictures of what holidays used to be alongside the unfilled promise of what I once hoped they might be and…well…they’re hard.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m eminently grateful for the abundance of blessings I have. And I mean that. I’m fucking lucky and fortunate in all the senses of the word. I have an amazing kid, my health (except for this layer of roundness I can never, ever seem to fucking get rid of), a wonderful career, friends, people who love me.

And it’s a weird flavor mashup to have gratitude and hope all jumbled up with lonely and wistful and not always be able to separate them without berating yourself for feeling one or the other in any given moment.

I’ve been a little absent here for a few weeks since Philip and The Airport Gun Incident (which is like the world’s most dystopian children’s book title) because I’ve been starting a new role at work (and my brain is fucking exploding) and I’ve had some other personal shit going on with home and family and well…life doesn’t always make room for sweary newsletters no one will really miss. BUT.

In the midst of my confusing fucking tangle of holiday feelings, I wanted to say…thanks.

I know this time of year isn’t easy for all of you either. I also know many of you are exhausted from being resilient, tired of being isolated, wondering how to feel joy amid dread or sad because family isn’t nearby, by choice or by circumstance. I get it.

But it’s funny. I started this stupid little missive as a way to yell into the void about the copious amounts of human fuckery that abound in my life and the universe on the daily, and while it’s done its job as profanity-laden catharsis, I’ve also been delighted to find that many of you needed this as much as I did. Because here you are. And you keep reading. And you keep sending me the nicest, warmest, most inspiring and vulnerable and agonizing and hilarious notes in response to these…yell-o-grams.

As it turns out, we’re all a little bit messy, fumbling our way through the fucktacular disasters that we find ourselves navigating in daily life. And somehow, that cacophony of ridiculousness is made more tolerable when we soak in it together, stringing together blue language like garland for our Life Trees of Fuckery and sharing a few tears or a few laughs or simply that look of “hold on bitches, this is about to get real” along the way.

The days get longer starting this week. Which tells me the light persists, dawns still happen, stars still show up to spark our imaginations, and if we’re lucky, we’ll get a few more turns on this big blue marble together even if we have to shout into the void once in a while because someone made it necessary. I hope your days are merry and bright or at least dripping in bourbon or coffee or whatever your coping substances are of choice. No judgment here. Whatever it fucking takes.

Thank you for being here. You’ve been a bright spot for me and I’m grateful. Bring on the calendar flip, a renewed optimism, and new adventures for us all. If the assholes don’t cock it up for us, that is. One can hope.

With love and even a little merry amid the angst,

Amber