Imagine a jar of inflatable balloons.
Take the balloons out of the jar and blow them up one by one.
Now, gather those balloons and cram them all back into the jar.
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This is, essentially, what “Coming Home for the Holidays” can feel like —
Middle-aged psyches
inflated to inelasticity with obligations, practical needs, unfulfilled dreams, quarantine-and-non-quarantine-related trauma, unexpressed hurts, and ideas and opinions made rigid by lived experiences,
All trying to wedge under one roof.
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And learning that the only way to fit is to deflate
or to burst.
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Family — our hardest lesson and our greatest gift.