CELEBRATE!!

It's January 3, 2012, 12:05 AM.  The "Holiday Season" FINALLY is over and I'm going to party like it's 1999 (thank you, Prince).  Why you ask?  Don't I have it backwards?  Nope.  If ever there was a season that justified the irrational act of suicide, for some of us, the Holiday Season is it. The mounting demands, my family's other family, the unfulfillable expectations, the commotion, the expense, the celebration of 4 - yes, 4 - birthdays (including mine).  

Someone who has Parkinson's Disease can tell you that stress and change of routine will  exaggerate Parkinson's symptoms.  Tremors  become more pronounced.  Balance becomes more of an issue.  It may be more difficult to remember things.  I got lost 3 times on one trip driving to my psychiatrist's office.  Believe me when  I tell you that I been there enough times to know how to get there.

For someone who struggles to keep a routine, the Holiday Season can make it next to impossible. (Personally, I don't struggle. I fail.)  Every year I try to make it less demanding.  I've reduced the size of the Christmas feast.  I've stopped making apple butter. I've skipped putting up a Christmas tree.  I use on-line shopping and send my kids out to buy things for their siblings.  Heck, between rounds of vomiting, this year, I sent them out to buy their own stuff. AND, I skipped Christmas cards.  But, still, I had more anxiety attacks than there are halls decked with boughs of holly.  The whole time I just kept saying to myself, "Just get through to January 3rd. Just get through to January 3rd."  Of course, the whole ordeal was stretched out an extra day because January 2 was part of the "Holiday Season."  I felt cheated by that.

When I took my "Holiday Season" essay in for Bob to read on December 20, I was well in to my anxiety, grumpiness, good-time-to-commit-suicide mode.  Bob told me that a lot of people felt the same way I did.  Sadly, many of them did not look past the ball dropping on Times Square and the pork roast and sauerkraut on New Year's Day (which is another thing I didn't do this year) to wait for the calm of the first week of January on the other side.

But here I am.  I made it.  I jumped on-line yesterday and bought a down commuter coat for more than half off while I sucked on a half-price candy cane from Walgreen's. (Peppermint is supposed to relieve my ever-present nausea.)  My younger daughter learned on December 30 that she was accepted to her number 1 college choice, so I started researching ways to pay for it and she started implementing them!  I haven't broken any New Year's resolutions yet because I didn't make any.  I certainly don't need that kind of pressure and those demands.

The strategy of identifying a "just get to" date works pretty well for me.  I use it throughout the year.  It keeps me calm and, thus, permits my meds to work and keeps those bothersome Parkinson's symptoms at bay.  My "just get to" date is usually my next appointment with Bob.  Because it is a periodic date, I can set intermediate "get to dates" if I need.

Now, I'm going to blow out my Christmas tree-scented candle (easier than a live Christmas tree) and go to bed.  I made it and I have another 10 lovely months before someone calls me wanting to know what I'm doing for Thanksgiving, which will start the whole wretched Holiday Season over again.

Of course, if I'm to believe the Mayans, Christmas 2011 was it - the last Christmas.  I don't wish for the end of the world.  Of course not.  But that doesn't prevent me from taking the position with anyone who will listen that I'm not preparing for Christmas 2012 because there isn't going to be one.  No demands.  No shopping.  No expectations.  I will say it with a grin on my face and a twinkle in my eye because it's such a wonderful excuse. "When Christmas arrives, I will simply shrug and say, "Who would have thought the Mayans would be wrong?" After that, all I'll need to do is think up an equally amusing reason not to prepare for Christmas 2013.


Happy New Year!


G