Okay y'all, it’s Holiday SZN (yes SZN, for the culture). You’re bouncing around and decking the halls with your fa-la-la-la-laliday cheer. It’s crunch time, too, as you’re now finalizing gifts for the family: the big wheel for your dirt-wrangling 5-year-old nephew, a model kitchen set for your niece who calls you twice a year — her birthday and Jesus’, and a fur for mom, to say thank you for, ya know, birth; stocking stuffers and gift cards for everyone else. You booked your flight home to be with the family on the first of the month and your checkbook is still looking at you sideways about that, seeing as how you were Super Travel Noire all 11 months prior. Your Christmas day fit, which will be a full on runway show-stopper belted pantsuit romper from cost-a-lot and sons is hanging on the closet door, ready to stunt on your cousin’s uppity new girlfriend, and the green smoothie you drink 3x a day in hopes of fitting into your size-too-small NYE sequin dress to impress potential bae is on the nightstand. You are ready! Right? Right?!
What have you forgotten? Something seems to be missing from this list of impossibles. Did you forget someone’s gift? Did you not reserve the rental car for when you arrive at the airport, so you can drive to surprise Grandma before going home? Did you forget to give auntie Penny your ticket money for the family’s annual trip to the movies on the first day of Kwanzaa? No, all of that has been taken care of. So, what is it? Oh, right. You forgot YOURSELF. That’s right, you left all of your own desires for gifts, warmth, food and comfort off the holiday listicle again. You do it every year it seems. You convince yourself this season is about love and giving, so it’s okay to exhaust your energy, emotions, and expenses on everyone else. And trust, I am not telling you to ditch your kinfolk for a solo trip to Cabo in December but chiiiiiild, TREAT YO SELF! There is nothing wrong with an excessive outpour of love and giving for those we hold dear, just make sure your own name is at the top of that regimen.
As you embark on your journey into the last days of this year, reflect on the ways you have loved you. Has it been consistent? Has it been enough? Do you even know what it is you truly desire from yourself? This season, where peace and love abide, give to the one who always has been there for you. To the ride or die, inner self that lets you overspend time and again to bring joy to everybody else. To the dessert maker who never puts any aside for herself. To the secret santa who makes sure all the kids get gifts, even though she has no children of her own. To the bomb ass soul sister you are for the world — give yourself some love this Holiday Season. It will make the parlay into 2017 a little bit more merry and bright.
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