Holiday Season

I'm sitting here in a 24 hour Starbucks that I've come to start writing in on weekends and Christmas is right around the corner. This past Holiday Season has been nothing close to normal. My day job only closes for a short amount of time and with all the travel I've done this year I've been without time off for a while now as I try to build up my hours for more travel in the summer months where I will be traveling for writing, which I love, but having to go without pay or in the negative hours to go see family sucks.

With no time off other than the office holiday hours and lack of funds I found myself alone for Thanksgiving. It's not the worst of things to have happened since Thanksgiving hasn't always been a huge holiday for my divided family. Christmas on the other hand has always been more meaningful for my mother, as I've always spent that specific holiday with her, and with my flight being cancelled with no flights till after the holidays  being forced to stay in the city alone this year I didn't want that to happen again. Alas with no vacation time other than a half day on Christmas Eve and the whole day on Christmas flying out to Utah for my white Christmas was looking harder and harder to make happen without breaking the bank.

After weight out the options and costs of everything I came to the conclusion that it would be better if I stay in the city. Not break my wallet for 24 hours or less of seeing family, and just have a holiday at my apartment alone. Then the tears hit. I already knew my boss would let me take as much time off as I wanted with the holidays to see family. He's extremely family oriented and spending time with family is extremely important to him. There isn't away that he would let me miss this out. Which I think made the whole situation all the harder. How can you choose between work and family when no matter what everyone is extremely understanding of whatever decision you make.

I'll let you in on a little secrete, my family is full of criers. I joke with my mom that it's all her fault that I can cry so easily-- happy, sad, mad, frustrated, exhausted -- you name it we will cry. And I HATE crying, especially in public/in front of people.

Anyways back to my story, so each time I started talking about Christmas and that I've decided that I've made up my mind that I'm going to stay in the city. It's the busiest time of the year at my day job, so I have to stay, I would bust out in tears. Not sobbing, just a lump in my throat and a few streaking tears. Not bad, but it kept happening. Then when I had to tell my Mom, who was understanding and was even going to fly out here for her week off, (which she knew she would spend most of it alone since I'd be working), the really sobbing happened. Good thing I was alone when this happened otherwise people would really hate to see me ugly cry. We'd come to the conclusion that I'd talk to my boss one more time and do one more analysis of all the options I had (yea I do this a lot) and talk at the end of the week.

Not surprising I freaked my boss out as the words "I need to go home," and I fought tears back. He kept asking what was happening, was something wrong that he didn't know about, what could he do. Which only made me laugh and cry even more. That's when it hit me, I really needed to go home, which is funny cause I never considered Utah home. My extended family lives there, and my mother since I was 13, and now my sister and her husband have been there for the past couple of years. Some how I had made that place home without knowing it and I needed that freezing white Christmas and warm hugs from my mom and big sister.

I needed to go home. It's crazy just how much all you need is the warmth and refreshing welcome of family, to get away from the stress of every day life. As much as a stay-cation is nice, it's different when  you go to a place where real life can fade away for a while. When I realized this I decided to screw responsibility, I'll take a pay cut or go in the negative for vacation time, I needed to go home. So, with some crazy early flights out of a different airport I found away to not break the bank and limit my vacation time while getting in some quality time with my mother and sister and her husband. Some how I'm making it work and for once I'm not dreading the holidays. The tears are gone and I get a white Christmas.

Here is the moral of the story, find your home, and don't sacrifice things that in the long run don't really matter. Yes a job is important, but more times than not family is more important. Don't let the winter depression or dreaded holidays pull you down. Go do something that means something to you. My work ethic makes me feel bad that I'm missing out on some work, but in the end I'll feel like crap even more if I don't see some of the people that make all the worries of life go away.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season full of happy tears and plenty of joy. I know that even with the stress of traveling out of state, that I will enjoy this Christmas more than I have in a long time. And yes I'm insane taking the first flight out both ways before the sun even comes out to greet the world, but worth it all!