WriteTogether Reflection: Week 9

***Take a lot of deep breaths before you read this. It may be a hard one.***

I have been writing my way through the prompts for this week and reflecting on the threads that have shown up throughout my life and learning more about them. As I have been writing and noticing these things, I have had other things rolling through my mind. Steamrolling, actually.

I have accepted and released so much in my recovery and healing. As I explore more pieces of my life I know there will be even more I need to grieve, accept, and release. I found myself a bit flummoxed with the prompting around what I have been carrying that I need to celebrate.

Celebration is hard. For so many reasons throughout my life and career, celebrating has been so brief it might as well be nonexistent. I found myself noticing that celebration feels, to me, like an obligation or chore. And while there are things that I am proud of, things I get excited about, things that feel like wins to me… I think that I know how to celebrate, to embrace joy in the moment. But I help but wonder about this present moment, and hold this tension that maybe now isn’t the time for celebration.  

And just like that, a meandering thought is run over by a freight train at full speed about to come off the rails. I cant hold it in.

Christmas is nearly here
The joy and wonder in the eyes of a child
The lights
The warm little family traditions
The decoration and shininess
The waiting with expectation for good things
For hopes and dreams to come to life
Juxtaposed against
Tear stained faces of little brown babies
Screaming in agony and terror
As whole safe places are blown to bits
In the name of protection and religion
A lashing out, wild, well funded, and unchecked
Clearly history has no meaning
When it is carried into the present
Extermination is too clean a word for this…

Where one a family offers welcome embrace
Children dance and laugh freely
A song of joy reverberates
Cinnamon and cloves
Warmth and softness
A glow and a gentle
Peaceful
Stillness

Others hold their hands to their ears
Blasts and explosions echo
Trembling earth and falling buildings
Crashing
Deafening
Thirst swollen tongues taste blood
And fight back the stench of decay and bile
Clawing with raw hands through rubble
For shards of hope
As generations of
Real
Present
Human beings
Are ravaged and all but erased

Thoughts and prayers will never be enough
We have lost our humanity
If we can bear witness to these atrocities
And close our eyes to them

What a time to celebrate
The birth of a baby who would grow up to be a Savior
As the star has hidden its light
And Bethlehem is burning

Peace on earth
Goodwill to humankind

I’ll be back next week. Go be Love.