On TV I always hear about how the suicide rate is higher during the holiday season. It’s usually laughed off as some sort of joke, but this year our family is feeling the strain. Please don’t contact the psych ward, I’m absolutely not saying that I’m about to off myself. It’s just that I can see, if family/relationship dysfunction goes unchecked for decades, how it might seem like there’s no other way out.

My husband and I have been trying to navigate the waters of our troubled family situation for…well, ever since we became a couple actually. The details of our situation aren’t important, it’s the emotional upheaval that others will be able to relate to. The emotional roller coaster has been long with harsh silences, uncountable cyber wars, and a few yelling matches. And now we’re here. Holiday blast off has taken place and we’re in the middle of it all.

Leading up to the Christmas festivities I’ve been reading up on how to get through difficult situations. The articles I read were less than satisfying, because I have such a desire to just work things out and then not have to spend time walking on egg shells. Maybe that seems naïve, but it’s true. My husband and I had decided months before that it was important to get things worked out for the sake of all of the years of holidays to come, and if that meant sacrificing this one then so be it. We were rigid and adamant that talking things through with our loved ones was the only way to go about things, and if we didn’t hold ourselves and everyone else accountable that the battle would be lost.

This past month, our perspective has changed a lot. One of the sources for this change is Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth. Tolle talks a lot about ego. My husband and I realized, basically at the same moment, that trying to hold others accountable for their actions was an act of ego. We were trying to get revenge and validation for ourselves (satisfy our egos). The truth is though, that no matter what we do others ARE accountable for what they do because their true selves keep them so, and THEIR life has to teach them their lessons (not us).

I also realized that revenge is an act of insecurity. There is absolutely no way that someone putting me down diminishes me (I mean the true me, not my self esteem…that gets bruised all the time). I am who I am no matter what, but when I try to force someone else to take it back or apologize or whatever, then I’m reacting and giving what they said more validity than it otherwise would have.

So here we are, in the midst of the holiday hubbub. Our original conflict never got worked out, and it still hangs in the air with its fermented stench. The smiles are strained, but conversation is occasionally broken up with bouts of true laughter. This is what it is though, and I accept it. Even if it’s not what I imagined or dreamt of, it’s real. And there’s nothing more that I can ask for.

Do you ever have to just get through the holidays?