Dec. 24th 2020
Christmas Eve. I struggle to even begin writing down any thoughts about it being Christmas and it being our first Christmas without you. It’s all happened so fast and also feels like we’re trapped in some weird time capsule. It’s our first Christmas with just one parent. You should be here. You should be enjoying our small little evening together and then helping mom get stockings ready before tomorrow morning. It’s just all so weird.
I don’t know how mom is doing it, I know we’re all “doing it” and asking the same questions of how and wishing so deeply we weren’t having to. I’m not really finding myself tired yet tonight and hesitant to lay down because it feels like too much to face. That the presents here all say “Love Mom” rather than Love Mom & Dad. It’s all too final.
I don’t want to feel hope, joy or share in good news or whatever it is we’re all supposed to be feeling with the season and I’m also not trying to or choosing to be the opposite of those things in any active way because I, if given the choice, would certainly prefer to not be having to feel the loss and grief I currently am. I’m still experiencing joy, beauty and hopeful moments as naturally as they come, the same way I’m experiencing sadness, grief, pain and anger as they naturally come. I’m trying to give every one a seat at the table. My pain deserves a long and welcome seat at the table this year, all of us and our losses deserves that space.
Joy, love, hope and peace all get a space too. More than ever in my life they exist at the same time and I’m holding space for whichever one needs to speak first and they are taking turns and at times all talking at the same time and over one another. It’s odd because I feel like everyone soon after if not immediately wants you to find the good you can focus on in bad times and I haven’t wanted to write down or share thoughts in that direction because it’s ok if I don’t focus on all the good right now, I’ll be okay if I stay and hang out in the realms of “things aren’t good” right now.
The future looks very different and we’ve all known this year was changing the future in very big and stark ways but I just didn’t think my families future would look so different. It seems silly and selfish to say but honestly it was hope that somehow we wouldn’t be in this exact situation. I have lots to be grateful for still and I am. We are all allowed to be in different places, to be seeing and experiencing the world in vastly different ways because we always have been.
Gratitude is the attitude but life is a complete paradox filled with more paradoxes. It’s absurd to grieve and experience joy at the same time. It’s absurd to mourn the losses of this year alongside celebrating the triumphs or the legacies of those who have deeply impacted our lives. We’re all living breathing beautiful paradoxes that get to experience such a wide range of emotional victories to utter heartbreaks and get up the next morning and decide today is another day we live and we love and we give our best. Our best some days is simply and miraculously just waking up and other days it’s filled with a variety of activities and beyond.
So I guess I managed today to write some thoughts. That’s my best. Today I did it, I faced the overwhelming thoughts in my head and the fighting of emotions sitting at my table to describe what today has felt like. I hope I can do it again tomorrow but if I don’t then I’ve still probably done my best in other ways. I hope I wake up tomorrow and cry, I hope I allow myself to be sad, I hope I love well, I hope I let myself be loved, I hope I experience joy, I hope I tell so many people that I love them.
