Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Winter Solstice, many more traditions both religious and secular all together, all at once the mere thought of it fills me with feelings of dread.

Is it because I remember that winter in New York and how depressed that year was? Is it because theres so much family at the holidays and I feel not only obligated and exhausted but an adolescent again around so much of my history?

My family history is wonderful. Im one of the very lucky ones. A not so dysfunctional home perhaps not passion, but at least humor, affection and lots of support and attention for my brother and me. Perhaps it just feels as if all the pain of the world comes into relief around the ever present pictures of joy at this time of year. I know its not about me at all. Its not personal. Do we all just notice, suddenly, all at the same time, that were all in this together? We go to church, go to synagogue, light candles, wrap presents, shop in the same stores, rush around in the dark after work. It feels so unreal. Like going through the motions without any real heart.

And then all at once it hits me. Its transition time. Something has ended. Something has started. Even more than at birthday time, Im older. My daughter moves toward her own life. My husband feels time there are days to Christmas and days to New Years. Weve done this before. Over and over. The ritual of transition.

To those of you who are waiting on the edge of a new relationship showing up or hoping the one youve started will turn concrete or hoping the one youve been long committed to will take flight into bliss believe it will. Regardless of how unsettling the holidays can be for so many reasons unique to each of us theres magic in the air. Things can happen. We are all teetering at a transition, looking for meaning to drop into our lives. Allow it to tip in. It will.

Part of what is so challenging about the end of the year is that we all feel pressed to do so much. Presents, parties, family, gather that man under your wing before the year ends, tension, anger, old resentments. Instead, try something different. Instead of trying to swim through this, sink into it. Believe the wave of emotion and giddiness and pressure and pain and feeling like a child again will hold you up. You will not be dropped on your head. You will float across the sea of possibilities into the next part of your life a bit more transparent. A bit wiser, a bit more vulnerable, feeling fragile but relying on the steel within you to let the world see what a beautiful, delicate, intricate, complex and yet totally whole woman you are.

Even when I cant see it, cant feel it, cant trust it, I believe. Sometimes Im propelled into action to help someone else and then I feel more human and less fragile. I feel of use. But sometimes I just make myself lie down on the floor and look up at the ceiling. Instead of a solid plaster barrier above my head if I look really hard I can see a window, a passage, a worm hole-time warp-incomprehensible path to what I cant see. And its not just my future, its my possibilities. I look up into something I cant see and let myself sink into myself. I thank the floor for holding me up, and then I just fly into whatever there is out there. I believe its bliss. I believe that my future and my daughters future, and my husbands future, and the futures of all my dear friends and family and clients, and even the futures of people I can never feel close to or even good when Im around them, are full of possibilities. Things I could never even imagine. Itll take the living of it, moment by moment, transition by transition, feeling by feeling, experience by experience, with the highest hopes I can muster, to discover what they are.

Wishing you bliss, joy, experience, love, faith, hope, adventure, and a glimpse of the beauty of your own soul in a random moment shared with all of us in the place we cant see thats full of possibilities...