You belong wherever you want to be. If that’s at home in bed with take out and Netflix, SO BE IT.
If that’s volunteering at your local soup kitchen, SO BE IT.
If that’s at one parent’s house, or your spouses parents house SO BE IT.
If it means you feel like being the one who doesn’t have to drive for once, and offering an open invite for whoever cares to show up, SO BE IT.
If you want to start any sort of new tradition that goes against the grain, SO BE IT.
If you make the decision to draw straws and pick one place to go, or decide to start alternating each year going forward, SO BE IT.
I don’t care if your grandparents have been doing the same thing for 50 years and expect you to show up. Your grandparents need to take into consideration that you have 4, 6, or 10 different invites, and you already wish you could be in a million places at once. It’s hard enough without added guilt.
Our situation is a direct result of the decisions of the generations before us, and we will no longer tolerate being punished for it.
People will be mad, but people will be mad no matter WHAT you do, so take yourself out of the rat race. If you can only take care of one person emotionally, give yourself permission to let it be you.
You will never belong in a box of other’s unending demands. You belong to you, before you belong to anyone else.
PUT YOURSELF FIRST, FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE.
So be it, and cheers to that!
Dear extended family, the proper response to your loved one not being able to be in a dozen places at once is, “We’ll miss you, but we understand. Let’s get together another day!” Anything more or less than that is emotional abuse that we do not deserve.”
