That Christmas Feeling

Hey everyone!! First and foremost, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I know firsthand that the holidays can be incredibly tough, so I hope you were all able to find as much joy in the moment as possible. Christmas is one of the hardest days for me. At its core, it’s a day about birth and hope and family. It’s a day centered around children - showering them with love and gifts and magic. And it’s a beautiful thing to see. But for me there will always be an emptiness to it. A sense of loss and a reminder of who and what I am missing. My daughter’s absence is so stark and present at Christmastime. She would be almost 3 years old - and I can’t help but wonder what she would think of the whole production. Would she understand Santa? Would she ask for any special gifts? Would she search the skies for reindeer? These are the days when that dormant pain bubbles right up to the surface. It’s indescribable - as though someone severed something inside of me that once made me whole and now I’m unraveling. I ache and long to be put back together again. But there is no back together. Not anymore. The pain sits low in the pit of my stomach. I can’t eat. I cant breathe. But the show must go on. Because my life is her legacy now. And I have people who are counting on me to keep going.

I think one of the hardest things, and the most difficult to explain, is how I struggle with constantly being asked if I’m okay. Because I’m grateful to have people who care - people who I know would do anything to soothe the pain. But it’s a question that’s answer is always the same. No. I’m not okay. But I have to learn how to live with that. How to grow around it. Make space for it. Set a place at my table for sadness and grief - next to joy and love and all those other emotions. I have to welcome them in and allow them to exist. Because as I’ve said before, the only way out is through. And, as John Green once wrote, pain demands to be felt. So I let it in and let it be with the knowledge that pain is not the absence of joy but something more akin to a sister. A twin. Two sides of the same coin - as one cannot truly exist without the other.

This season of my life has not been without great joy. That’s the real dichotomy of it all. And if you have been keeping up with this blog recently, you’ll know that I’ve been dating a very wonderful guy for the past 2 months or so. It’s difficult to articulate what this new relationship has meant to me. I’ve never felt so heard, so seen, so respected. I’ve never been treated with such gentleness and care. There is a safety there that has been hard for me to accept - because I’m always worried that the other shoe will drop. But B has never wavered or made me question. He is so pure and so kind. He has become one of my best friends and I hope and pray that things will continue in this direction. To say I am thankful to have him, especially during the holiday season, would be an understatement. He has a beautiful heart and I’m honored to be allowed to have a piece of it. So to Brandon I say thank you for allowing me the space to grieve and holding my hand through the sadness. It means more to me than you will ever know. And to the rest of you, I hope the new year brings you everything you could want and more. We all deserve some love and light and happiness in the coming days. Xoxo