To all those lonely hearts

The start of a New Year is always filled with mixed emotions. It's a little sad to take down Christmas decorations and box them all up because it means the holiday season has come to an end. I decided to let those things stay for another two weeks before I put them away since we were not home to enjoy them anyway.  I even placed the Christmas cards on a shelf to feel the love of those people who cared enough to send us Christmas greetings. In two weeks, our home will be  back to normal again, ready to start a new year.

Life is like  that. It seems like in any situation involving changes in our lives there is a blend of both sad and happy feelings. And if there is anything you can be certain of it is that life is full of changes. Life is full of endings and new beginnings. In our case, is our move to the Philippines as far as you can possibly be away from our loved ones. 

There is an incredible amount of emotions as we go through the new change and I believe that sometimes we get afraid to express the emotions we are coping with to anyone else around us because we are afraid that they might judge us for feeling any sadness to be away from our loved ones since what we are doing is wonderful and many things here should make us feel very happy. Thus, many of us hold our sadness or fears in and try to cope with them on our own. Sometimes that works but sometimes it doesn't, and not been able to express what we feel can cause us to become isolated, lonely and withdrawn. I avoid any of those feelings as soon as they start to appear. 

I hate that there are people during this time of the year who feel alone in this life. The fact is that we are never alone. There are others out there going through the same things that we are, it's just that we need more of us who are willing to be honest about it so we give permission to everyone else to feel comfortable being honest about it as well. The picture in this post is at a  time in my life as a single mom  feeling lonely at times for no reason when I had so much to be thankful for. 

I know a dear friend in Utah who I admire very much and wanted to see her but all I could do was leave her a present on her door step.  Last summer I was able to spend a few minutes with her and we discussed a little about her trials and despite her hard life, she has come out fine.  

We discussed why is it that we hold certain feelings of loneliness in and don't express them to others or ask for help in dealing with them. One time she told me,"I am so tired of this life" Poor thing, she hasn't had a break since I've known her for the past fifteen years. Her husband was a successful doctor until he suffered a stroke that changed his personality completely. He started cross-dressing and acting very weird.  Their marriage ended and now she is supporting herself the best she can teaching piano. 

We came to the conclusion that many times we are coping with emotions that we hold in and don't share with anyone because we almost feel ashamed for having them. Almost ungrateful for having them. And we worry that if we were to express them out loud that other people would judge us as being a terrible person for having those feelings...so we often hold them in and don't deal with them properly and we don't ask anyone for help in dealing with them. This Christmas, I wanted to visit with her but we didn't have time. I think of her and people like her during the Holidays. My wish each year is that there are no lonely hearts out there as we all have value and we are all loved by one  loving Heavenly Father. To all those lonely hearts out there during the most special time of the year and I know because I also was one of you not too long ago, I say to you, hang in there! The best is yet to come! 

Con amor,

Vero