Last year, I wanted to write the following blog post and even attempted a few times. I could never get it right and gave up on it. Here I am, a year later, with the message still swirling in my heart and in my brain without an adequate way to share it. I don’t know if these words will appear too negative, or maybe no one will quite understand, but I feel almost compelled to share what I am going to write.
As Thanksgiving weekend ends and we enter the joyous holiday season, some questions enter my heart.
What if the happiest time of the year was the saddest time of the year for you? What if during the time of family gatherings and holiday parties you feel the loneliest? You look around at the lights, the excitement, the magic, and it makes you feel isolated.
How, amid the celebration of light, can one feel such darkness?
I do not know what is making you feel sad this holiday season, but I know that it is a time of sorrow for many people. There are so many things that cause broken hearts. Perhaps you are all alone in this time when families gather. You miss someone (a child, spouse, parent, sibling, friend, mentor) who has passed away. You may be grieving relationships ending that were not your choice. It’s possible you know the anguish of ending relationships you desperately wanted but proved damaging to your core self. Sometimes connections don’t really end as much as they fizzle out, and you end up feeling forgotten. Possibly you have had dreams shattered and opportunities lost this year. Have you been trying to achieve a goal that seems practically impossible?
Perhaps you feel inadequate to create the magic you so desperately want for your own children due to financial or emotional stresses. This might be the first year after a divorce and you will be away from your children for the first time.
Maybe, as you live with PTSD, anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges, each day is already a struggle to survive and the holidays amplify the difficulty. You might be living with chronic pain or infertility or many other trials that seem like they will never go away. Maybe you are fighting cancer or a newly diagnosed autoimmune disorder. It could be you have been fighting health struggles for a long time that deplete you in numerous ways.
Sometimes we experience profound heartache because we see those close to us in distressing or worrisome situations. Is your child struggling in school or socially? Is someone you love battling an addiction? Are you? Have you been battling inner demons for a long, long time that no one knows about? Are you striving to recover and heal from things we simply don’t discuss that made you carry a depleted sense of self-worth for a long time?
There are infinite possibilities of what is making this Christmas season seem darker than it is light.
I don’t know what is causing your heart to hurt. I don’t know if it is a new pain that just came sometime this year, a pain that has lingered for most of your life, or somewhere in between. I don’t know if the sorrow is a little twinge in part of your heart or if the ache engulfs your heart to the point it feels difficult to breathe.
I don’t know.
I don’t know if the pain makes life so difficult, functionality seems impossible. I don’t know if it is a pain you do all you can to escape or avoid, maybe even in ways that add pain or loneliness. I don’t know if people tell you to just get over it or to look at the bright side. Maybe all you can do is pretend, and the people closest to you are not aware of the pain. There’s so much I don’t know.
What I do know is that pain- deep and hidden- exists in our world. That sometimes life really hurts. It can be brutal. In a season of rejoice and light, the sorrow and the darkness can become magnified. That sometimes we can feel guilty if we are sad because we get the message that we are not doing enough- whether that’s not focusing on gratitude, not letting things go, or not trying enough to just be happy.
I think last year my problem was that I knew this problem existed and I felt like I needed to somehow fix it because I was acknowledging it. I needed to give some inspirational advice of how to make the season not so depressing or brighter.
The truth is, I don’t have that answer.
Sorry. I truly wish I did.
All I can offer is an understanding heart and mind that acknowledges your pain and validates that sometimes the holidays are excruciating. I hear you and I see you and I appreciate that it might all feel unbearable. I’m a stranger and I would seriously listen to your pain if I could. I admire you for fighting every day to survive and thrive amidst grief and darkness.
It takes tremendous strength and courage to face each new day carrying what you carry in your heart, hoping one day it will be different.
That’s inspiring and beautiful to a soul like mine.
I think you should honor your pain and the strength it takes to live with it when the world keeps moving around you through the bustling season of holiday joy. Maybe the answers begin to appear when you really feel the pain, acknowledge pain is a normal response to whatever you are experiencing, and get curious about what it is trying to tell you. Once again, I don’t know.
Just know this – I understand that sometimes this is the unhappiest time of year and I admire your tenacity to keep fighting. I believe you have the capacity to honor yourself in a way that is right for you.
