Grief and the Holidays
I wrote this six years ago; despite changes and growth in my life, the sentiment is the same.
Check on your people. Check on the person who looks like they might need a hand when you are out and about. Check on each other. The holidays can be so hard, and the general vibe has been hard. Maybe there is somewhere you can soften for yourself, or for someone else, and become the ripples we all so dearly need. Love, love, and only love.
The holidays can be SO hard. They can be hard because of your family, and they can be hard because you have no family. Both are true for me. I no longer have a biological family to spend the holidays with, and when my parents were alive, Thanksgiving in particular was a really hard holiday fraught with serious trauma and hard emotions every single time.
I am not writing this because I want or need sympathy. I am not writing this because I feel sorry for myself. I am writing this in hopes that maybe it will provide a glimpse of understanding and maybe some connection to those who need it or are at least open to it.
There are many of us with no family for the holidays. It hurts plain and simple. Sometimes it hurts to see how much family other people have - and that hurt doesn’t mean that people aren’t happy for their friends who have that - quite the opposite - but it still digs in deep to that wound, at least for me.
The holidays make me feel so twisted, I don’t know what I want. I know that I am not alone in that feeling. I also want to be very clear that it is possible to be 100% aware and grateful for all of your blessings while simultaneously feeling alone, wounded, lost, and heartbroken. They are not mutually exclusive.
So I say this with all the gentleness in my being - it can be very hurtful to hear be grateful for what you have when feeling all this pain from the holidays. It is ok to hurt, to sit with the pain, to acknowledge it clearly. It is ok to just be sad and not ok.
If you don’t know what to say to a friend who is having a hard time, it’s ok to just say that - “I don’t know what to say, but I love you” or “I am here if you want me to be”, or even just a simple, “I’m thinking of you, I know it’s hard”. Also, please don’t be offended if you don’t hear back right away or at all.
Sometimes the hurt is paralyzing, but those little messages mean the world and make a big difference. I wrote this not just for myself, but for all of us who are connected through the hard wounds that tend to rip open even more this time of year.
If the holidays feel heavier than usual this year, you don’t have to carry it alone. When you’re ready, reach out for support.
