My Social Media-less Life

I spent all weekend and the better part of today specifically trying to decide if I needed to write this blog, but I process grief through words. Not only verbally, but also on paper/screen. So… here we go.

This Christmas was… different than others. My bestest friend (with the little dog on her lap in the above picture) had to stay in Kansas City for the weekend until flights to her home state opened back up and that wasn’t until today.

So she spent Christmas with us since she lives with my mom and it just made sense. We do Christmas on Christmas Eve, so it also opened up her Christmas Day if she had wanted to hang out with other friends in town.

And then a traumatic experience happened right at the end of what was otherwise a great day. It affected all of us in ways I think we still aren’t ready to talk about, but the super short version is… one of the dogs in my mom’s pack had to be put down.

Since it was so sudden and involved so many people making decisions they never thought they’d have to make, one of the biggest takeaways I got from the past weekend was:

Whether we wanted them or not, a lot of new leaves were turned over.

If Christmas Eve is any indication of how 2023 is going to be, there will be a lot less “suspicious minds” and a lot more trust in our family unit.

The same bestest friend mentioned today on the way to the airport that our family (since she’s definitely part of the family because she lives in my mom’s basement, haha) has lost three pets this year.

As a third party who’s emotionally involved in these animals, I really hope and pray we don’t have another death for at least five years. Preferably longer.

At some point I had wanted to do a “how much have I grown since leaving social media” blog before 2023, but… this will suffice I think.

Because I realized that I’ve grown in that I’m recognizing grief never hits the same way twice and it always comes in waves. Grief can happen over anything or anyone and at literally anytime.

Out of grief however, there’s growth. If we’re not letting go of things well, we can’t reach out for the new things God wants us to take hold of. Every door that closes leads to a new door that’s opening right in front of us. We just have to be willing to walk through it.

As of right now, our family unit has decided adding another dog (when there are already four of them still there) wouldn’t be the wisest decision, so maybe the door that opens is the one that has more trust or more peace behind it.

Only the Lord knows, but I look forward to 2023 for sure.

So although this was a somewhat crappy Christmas, it was happy. And I’m not sad to see the back of 2022.