A Very Hard Lesson - A Solo Story

0:00 Hey, everyone, it's Will. I wanted to record something really quickly because I'm sitting here. It's Christmas. Christmas Day, December twenty fifth, it is almost six pm, and this has been probably one of the most challenging Christmas that I've had, maybe ever. Indulge me here for a second, because I'm The reason why I'm recording this is because I think everyone has their own challenges that they have to face, whether it's a holiday or not, and maybe knowing that you're not alone, well maybe it will help. This particular day was a challenge for lots of different reasons, and a lot of them are gonna seem pretty petty to you.

0:46 They seem petty to me when I think about them now, but each one just built on top of the other and made it so that this is one of the most challenging Christmases I've ever had. Let me preface it by saying, first and foremost that our family is down in Florida, so we're pretty separated. Not long ago, we decided to stop the family tour and go to Florida and hit the whirlwind where we had to visit every single family member during Christmas, and it was a challenge for us. When my daughter turned four, we decided that we were no longer going to do that. We were instead going to have Christmas at our house and if anyone wanted to come, they would welcome. They were welcome to come. But we wanted our daughter to grow up waking up to her own tree, to her own presence from Santa in her own house, and invite friends and family to our home and create our own traditions. So that's what we've done for the last ten years or so. Well, here's where it starts getting petty. Now, what I'm about to say is a little bit of a spoiler for Christmas.

1:56 So if you have young kids, maybe this is not the time to listen to this because I'm about to spoil something that was spoiled for my daughter this year. So fair warning. This is the first year that my daughter knows the truth about Santa. See she's fourteen, and yeah, that's old fort still believing in Santa, I understand, But our daughter is magical and so special. One year, maybe two, three, four years ago, she came to me. All of our friends were asking me the question, you know, Santa real? Do you believe in Santa? And all that kind of stuff, and she came to me and asked me straight out, yeah, it is Santa reel because I'm getting lots of questions and I wasn't ready to have the conversation with her, yeah, because it was just about Christmas time. And so my answer to her was, Santa is real for those that believe he is real. And boy did she grab on to that because all these years, she just felt that she was one of the lucky ones that because she still believes in Santa, she was one of the very few who got visited by the jolly old red guy, which made it harder for me when I actually have to sit her down and tell her that now that she was going into high school, it wasn't responsible anymore for me to let her believe that Santa was still something that was real. And the disappointment in her eyes told me everything I needed to know about what the reality of it was for her. See, she really truly

3:29 believed in the magic that we instilled in her. And we've went back and forth so many times trying to figure out whether or not we were gonna even do the Santa thing. We didn't want to lie to her. Her whole life. But ultimately we decided we wanted to give her magic, that experience of waking up in the morning and having all these gifts at the bottom of the tree that magically appeared overnight. We wanted that for her. We wanted her to experience the magic of reindy Er flying through the air, and the experience of Santa Tracker every year where were Santa. Now we're saying to now, oh my gosh, God, I hurry up and go to bed, because he's going to be here any minute. Well, perhaps we did it a little too well. I mean, we went all out. We did snow footprints and Best Christmas Tree awards and all kinds of things. We were those parents, and so when I saw the disappointment in my daughter's eyes this time for the first time, it crushed me.

4:25 And I say that very genuinely. I knew it was going to be difficult to have the conversation with her, but I guess I'd just assume she go, Okay, yeah, the gig is up. I knew how much you guys liked doing this for me, and I just figured that it goes as long as I as I could, just to make it a happy Christmas for you guys, since it seemed like you guys really enjoyed it. But yeah, I know, like Tanta's not really real. Well, that was not what happened. That was not what happened, and it crushed me because I wasn't ready to see that disappointment and the sadness in her eyes, the loss of her childhood all of a sudden at one time. So that's one thing. But then we also, for the first time ever, had my brother and his kids come for Christmas. We bought them a ticket to come to our house for Christmas and promise them an incredible time, because hey, our traditions they're pretty damn cool. Christmas Eve, we have a big gift together with some of our friends and family.

5:28 Karen makes this incredible beef Wellington and I mean incredible beef Wellington, and we have drinks and incredible meal and wonderful conversation and the kids all have a great time. And then at midnight we opened up one present that we have given to each other or for each other, and then everyone else goes home and we work our butts off. We watch Love actually, and I mean Karen and I will sit and watch Love actually while we finish wrapping up the gifts that we are going to put in the tree on behalf of Santa. And then the next day, Christmas Day, we all wake up at the crack of dawn because of course Sianna can't stay sleeping for too long because oh my Goshanta came. And then she of course comes and runs into our our bedroom and wakes us up. And we've probably gone to bed at four o'clock in the morning when we finished wrapping all the gifts and doing all the stuff, and she wakes us up inevitably on six six point thirty, so we're very tired. But Karen will have prepared overnight French toast and put it in a fridge, and the first thing she does is go downstairs put that overnight French toast in the oven, and while it's cooking, we open up presents from Santa and have a wonderful, beautiful, wonderful time. And then after that's done, we play with our gifts while we eat overnight French toast, which is incredible, and then after that we go as a family to the movies. It's just a tradition we've always had, so anyway, we promised our niece and nephew a wonderful Christmas, and they came and they were so excited, and we were excited to get here. However, Sienna got sick about four

7:01 days or so before they were meant to come. Thankfully, she got better the day that they got here, but sadly, Karen contracted the illness the day they got here. And this illness has nothing to laugh about. It's not COVID we tested, but it is something rough. Karen has been in bed for four days with high fevers. She cannot move, she cannot do anything. So these poor kids have come here being promised a wonderful Christmas and having to sit around dealing with their uncle who's really bad at doing Christmas stuff, trying to cheer them up. And don't worry Tea who Tia is what they call her, Karen, her aunt.

7:46 She's gonna get better any day, at any minute, and then we can really do Christmas. And it's just been going on and on. And Christmas Eve came and went. We had to cancel a lot all of our friends and our family because Karen and was still in bed, very badly sick. And here it is Christmas Day and Sienna comes to me today and goes, Daddy just doesn't feel like Christmas. It just feels like it's just a regular Wednesday. Oh boy, top that with well, as we're wrapping gifts, and of course I'm rapping gifts on my own because they can't see that I'm rapping gifts for them, so I'm rapping gifts on my own. I'm playing Christmas music, trying to get myself into the Christmas spirit, and I'm pulling out all the old gift bags that we got from last year that we saved, and the tags all say to Sienna from Santa who. That hit me hard because not only was this the first year that Sienna doesn't get to experience Santa, but it's also a really crummy Christmas because her mom's sick and we couldn't have her traditions like we always do. And she's having a great time with her cousins, but it's still just a regular Wednesday. It's not Christmas anymore. And I'm trying to cook dinner for them in lunch and trying to get them happy, and trying to take care of Karen and fighting not getting sick myself, and I feel it on the edges. But I'm not accepting it. I'm not letting it happen. I can't sleep in the same bedroom as Karen, so I'm having to sleep on the couch. So I'm

9:18 super tired, and just one thing after another, another of another, everything gets stacked up on top of my head. And then I opened up these gift bags and I see two Sienna from Santa, and I lost it. All the pressures, all the stress, all the sadness I was pushing away, all the disappointment all came to the surface, and I just lost it. I found a quiet place and just let all the emotions come out. And once those emotions came out, I went to the bathroom. I washed my face, my eyes, tried to make them less puffy, and came back downstairs and continue wrapping into Christmas music. And just then I looked at my clock and it was four forty four. And if you follow the show at all, you know how much I put into angel numbers and to have that message at that time, I hadn't looked at the clock all day long. The one time I looked the clock right after I have a massive breakdown like I did, was my spirit guys and my angels telling me it's okay, it's all right, Everything's going to be fine. And as I sat there and started crying again, but this time in gratitude for the message, all of a sudden, the message, the true message of what I was supposed to learn through all of this, came through and here, and I'm sorry it took me so long

10:49 day to this point, but here is the whole reason why I'm recording this today. I ask myself, why am we supposed to experience it? Right? Everything happens for a reason, coincidences and everything is meant to show us or teach us something. Well, I finally get it, and you've probably guessed it by now. You're probably way ahead of me by now. But in my defense, I'm dealing with a lot right now internally, and I know, I know it's all petty stuff, it's all really light stuff. But for me, for some reason, one thing stacked on top of the other. It was a lot. But the message that I found was it is so important for us to be grateful for every single day, to celebrate the love that we share every single day. If we make one day super important in preference over any other, day. We are opening ourselves up to the possibility that something could happen that day, and suddenly everything that that day means to us is ruined like it is or it was for me today.

11:52 And I know it's difficult for kids to think this way, but for me, this is my lesson, and I'm thinking this might be someone's lesson out there too, because I had a very wrong need to record this and set it out. I'm going to try to make as many days as possible, as special as possible, and share with my daughter the fact that you never know from one day to the next what's going to happen. So yes, you can look forward to a special day like Christmas or New Year's or your birthday or whatever day you look forward to, but it can't be everything to you. You've got to celebrate every day. You've got to appreciate every day, be grateful for every day, look around and experience every day as the gift that it is, because it is a gift, because you never know when Christmas is going to come and it's going to find you sick. Now, it doesn't invalidate all the sadness and bad times that everyone else is having. Here This Christmas and feel like we kind of ruin their Christmas. Unfortunately, something nephew, they probably would have had a better time at their other families house. So this was a hard lesson for me.

13:01 This was very hard. And if you've listened to the show for a while, you know that I am the type that tends to learn things the hard way. So I hear you, you nurse, I got it. It's a hard lesson to learn, and I'm sad that it came at the expense of other people. But I will try. I will try to learn my lesson, and I will try to live each day as special as I can, because you never know what's going to happen on Christmas Day. All right, Well, if you're still here, I really appreciate you sitting and listening to me. If you had an experience similar to this one, if you had a less than ideal Christmas, or if you found yourself looking for something, then maybe this message was for you. I'd love to hear from you. They say misery loves company, and I'm not particularly saying I'm miserable, although I'm not really truly over the sadness yet, but I will be and knowing that there's other folks out there that feel the same way, who might have taken some sort of solace in what I am sharing with you that would help, that would go a long way towards helping me get over it. God, this sounds so petty. Everyone says the most important thing is to be authentic, right, Well, this is authentically Will at one of his lowest points. So I am very grateful for my angels and my spirit GUIDs for the message today, right when I needed it the most. And

14:31 I hope that this message comes to someone who maybe needs it when they listen to it as well. For all of you who are out there, whether you had a wonderful Christmas, and I hope that you did have a wonderful Christmas or Hanukkah or anything whatever it is that you celebrate, I hope that your celebration was a fantastic when filled with joy and laughter and family and friends. And I wish you a very merry Christmas, because that's what we celebrate. And I hope, I sincerely hope that when we celebrate Christmas, which will hopefully be tomorrow, everyone will be healthy and wiser for the challenge. All right, thanks so much for listening. I wish you the very best and I will talk to you later