Exhale.

The cold winds always come around this time of the year. It’s the same thing. Barren trees. Broken leaves. Belabored needs.

The world rushes and somehow you end up feeling like you’re rushing over the falls.

The black celebration of Halloween turns to gluttony on Thanksgiving and then a smorgasbord of presents on Christmas. A trio of months full of selfish consumption. You reach midnight on new year’s eve vowing to be a better person who doesn’t worry as much and who gives more.

Yet then the new year arrives and you fall in line like everybody else. Like everybody else in the endless pool, the raging waters, the gushing currents that never stop.

The grey skies are good to write under. But they also feed the doom and the gloom. They hide the sunshine that serves to remind. They hide the sky that serves to rejoice. They hide the light that ends up refueling and remotivating.

The end of November and you find yourself wondering and weary. Wondering, wandering, worrying. All those wonderful words beginning with “W”. Woe. Wow. Weird. Why?

Like twenty years ago and ten and four, you find yourself worrying about tomorrow. The worry only magnifies with age since you have more to worry about. There are more in your house to worry about. You see so many great things happening and hear so many wonderful reports. Yet sometimes those dark skies threaten and menace and bully you around.

Sometimes it’s not exactly fun living close to a windy Midwestern city.

You keep working because you see the fruits of your labor. But sometimes the fruits don’t always result in financial waterfalls. That would be okay if you were only worrying about yourself. You never worried about yourself, not back then. But then there was another, and another, and two more.

You enter a December hoping to really try to remember. Hoping that the whole point of the holidays will be celebrated. Hoping that you continue to carry hope around with you each day.

It’s hard. You know. But there are so many others that have it harder. Much harder.

Take a thankful spirit and then rejoice in the gift. That’s what November and December should mean to you. And if not, someone needs to knock on your door and slap you in the face to remind you.

So much to be thankful for. And so much to celebrate about.