I love the holidays. Really.

So why am I struggling through these days? Feeling anxious, somewhat let down, knowing that although I am not yet on the verge of tears, if I let myself really give in to the feeling I have in the pit of my stomach, I could start weeping at any second. Why this mental meltdown? I love the holidays -- I love shopping for just the right gift, something unique and different, something that really means something as opposed to just buying things so that the receiver can have something to open on Christmas day.

I'm not a spendthrift. So Christmas shopping -- hell, even grocery shopping around the holidays -- is not something I do with any shred of frugality. Everyone in my life is so easy to shop for -- ooh, Grif needs this. Perfect, Jim's going to love this! I love the rush, and yes, even the silly, sappy, over-played Christmas music. I love decorating the house just so -- and getting ready for the holiday baking now that the big-turkey-mandatory-clam-chowder day is over. I love it all. It makes me feel warm. Alive. Happy.

So what's different this year? I still feel all these things, but they are tinged (tainted?) by a hint of hysteria. Of panic. Of sadness. Was it my birthday? Yes, I am one year closer to a huge (in my mind) age landmark, but this year's celebration was amazing (maybe that's it -- I'm still hungover?). I've been having a hard time with my mother lately, a daily struggle with emotions and words, so easily misunderstood across the miles and over the phone. So is that it?

Is it that, again, there is still so much left undone that I'd really love to learn how to make time for? I know I have to pick my battles (time, always, more time!) with what I can really do with my free time -- since, at the heart, I want every extra minute to be spent playing with Griffin or taking advantage of stolen days with Jim.

I got teary watching Disney's Prep and Landing the other day -- first because Jim DVR'd it so we could watch it (I love him for doing that -- I didn't even ask. The best surprises are like that.), second because the message was such a fun, simple, modern reminder of what this whole season is really all about. And yet...

For the first time as a blogger, I have no grand resolution to these questions. No lesson to try and remind myself of. No epiphany that writing has helped me realize, embrace, know. No "punchline." No immediate feeling of peace. Inner, solid, fulfilling peace. Am I having a mid-holiday crisis? Perhaps. Perhaps. And so I'll end this one with a song instead of words (and even this was a struggle -- the deliberately sad Robert Downey Jr. River? Or something with just a bit more...something?). And hope that whyever this melancholy is, wherever this sadness comes from, it will soon pass me on by. So I can enjoy the holidays. Really.