Attempts at serenity - there is only love

While Christmas and being at home for long enough to be at home is always a lovely time (if tinged with absence for the past 14 years), inevitably tension and everything that is unresolved creep in, in a more condensed form than when I am geographically removed from the past and the network of family and friends here.  

So I send those whose actions, inactions or words hurt people close to me and me (and ultimately themselves, of course) love, because they may not know better. It sounds trite and too easy, but there is some truth in that paradigm that "everyone is doing the best they can".  

I used to spend so much time and energy worrying about and overanalysing situations and people, and while the worrying remains, I am able to apply the knowledge that we cannot change others; we can only change ourselves and our attitude. But our attitude and action/reaction are different, if overlapping, concepts, and at times I feel helpless; it can be hard to know what to do or not to do, whether to speak up or remain silent. Stepping away and creating space can feel like distancing myself (which may be the right route to take) or denial. 

I can see myself slipping into old patterns here in my childhood home, composing letters in my head, wanting to mediate and create harmony. And I am not saying this from some superior position of great insight and righteousness  – all of this is compounded by guilty feelings; I am hardest on myself, as usual, revisiting my early twenties and other phases or events of my life I am not particulary proud of. The situations that cause upset at the moment get tangled up with just about everything else I can fret over, from the minutiae of my own world to global issues. So I try to detangle it and help where I can help, act where it is appropriate, do my best in the present moment, and practise to let things go.