Christmas Lost

I used to listen to Christmas music all year.  It annoys people but is an especially good thing for a musician to be able to do.  Any of you who hate hearing the music "early" should understand that if the people you depend on to bring that spirit,in that little window of time you've set aside to enjoy it, don't practice and prepare for months, often beginning to put ideas together throughout the year, then you won't have it. 
I have never in the past dreaded either the sacred or the secular aspects of the holiday.  They have their little niches and have always brought enjoyment.

For the first year in my entire life, I don't want Christmas to come.  Despite mental illness I have always still enjoyed Christmas.  I'm only partially sure of why.  Christmas pressure has always been there but the joy I get from it always managed to make the pressure worth it.  This year the same pressures are there but the joy disappeared. It's not even Halloween and I am dreading the holiday season.

There are issues in my family that make me feel guilty for even thinking of trying to celebrate.
Singing.... If I sing how I want then I let one group down but if I help the other group then I will feel like the music is drudgery.  No matter the choice, I feel guilty already.

I feel pulled.  Spread out so thin that the winter winds will simply blow me away. 
Christmas saved me in years past but this year it might finish me off.

I remember memorizing the scriptures that the angel spoke to the shepherds.  It was a proud moment to deliver them boldly in our family pageants.  Wrapped in a white sheet.

I remember the first year I sang with the Salt Lake Vocal Artists and how good it felt to sing such beautiful music with strong singers that only needed me to worry about doing my part.  I didn't have to worry about anyone else's. Just mine and somehow the combination of everyone doing that made such beauty and warmth.  No pressure.  And each if us understood the work we did and didn't take each other for granted. 

Now those days are gone away.  Each entreaty to sing says, "Come fill our hours with music."  "Since it's easy for you it will be easy for you to put it all together."  Neither is true.

I haven't been able to pull everyone else together and help them make music for quite some time.   I don't have it in me to form groups and motivate people to do it. I was never great at that.  But now, it drags, it hurts.  Not just emotionally but physically.   It makes me sick to try to do, it makes me hurt, it causes migraines, it tears me into pieces and those float away on the winter wind as well.

This has sucked all of my energy to plan the holidays for my family.  By now I usually have several gifts for each of my kids and especially my wife.  Things that I knew would make them feel good to get.  I have one thing.  And I can't picture the smile on the receiver's face like usual.

Traditions already feel like a millstone chained to my neck.

On a year like this I'd be gearing up for a new Star Wars movie.  To see it with my family in December. To laugh and talk about what we liked about it as we come out of the theater.  It doesn't hold magic for me.  I'm supposed to be things.  I don't know how I can be those things.  People say if you just try to not be broken you won't be.  It doesn't help and only makes me feel like garbage.

So keep Christmas from coming.  Let it go away this year