I feel for those whose hearts feel the added sadness of the holidays. As most are eagerly looking forward, there are many who see the emptiness, instead of the full spectrum of joy.
For me it usually feels half hearted.
Where a part of my heart will never be fully open to all the sentiments the holidays bring.
My innocence of family has been marred.
The wounds seem to leak and bleed on holiday trimmings.
Whereas before, I innocently believed I had the power to make a holiday into something special, by all my attention to the details.
Details which now seem shallow and almost valueless.
I don't need a certain tree, a favorite dessert, the perfect home etc. None of that can fill the hole left by my estrangement.
I can go along, and not quite pretend, but the loss of innocent enthusiasm doesn't arise.
The value I believe I used to place on holidays has fled.
It simply is just another day.
I know, it may seem tragic, but it has also given me value of all the other days.
I know it isn't the day, the right gift and a perfect table that creates a family of love.
Love happens on ordinary days.
I also know, the value of love, having lost so much.
I know, the value of me, by what I wasn't willing to settle with.
It is funny, the holidays lost their value, when family mattered more.
The accent prior was on the holiday and the trimmings IT needed. I wasn't focused on the individuals who gathered.
I didn't see myself, so how could I have seen them.
I remember how much the holidays mattered, for I truly believed a perfect holiday, could and would, create a perfect family.
How backwards that all is.
Now, my heart isn't fully into these glitzy days.
The details have lost their gleam.
It is weird that while my heart has a huge hole in it, it also feels bigger and able to feel more. That all the brokenness has allowed me to feel more with less.
And the feelings swings back and forth.
From the past to the present. To what I have and what I lost.
Holidays and full families or perhaps intact families can be irritating.
Their completeness and fullness scream out my incompleteness.
And, yet my present family is in good shape.
Perhaps, besides me.
I have so much more, than what I lost.
For others, what they lost feels unsurmountable.
Broken hearts and holidays just simply don't mix.
So, for those who can't muster up the usual enthusiasm for family gatherings, when there are big holes where a loved one used to be, or many. I understand.
I truly, would be happy with a soft tree of lights and fire and maybe tea.
It could go by me, quietly.
I may not be able to give a 100% enthusiasm to the party prep and meal planning etc - but I can be fully present with family.
I now see people, where decorations used to be.
Cheers to us, the half-hearted people!
May each of us be able to focus on what we need to, in order to get our hearts through this holiday season.
Find a place where you can be at peace inside.
It doesn't have to be traditional, or follow any pattern.
Add or take away the parts, weaving together a new normal.
I have become one of the elders at our gatherings. Now it is up to the next generation to set the tone. I feel less stressed about this. For, it was hard to create excitement when my heart wasn't truly in it.
Now, I can be the grandparent and watch the excitement and innocence of the families beneath me.
I made the choices I made, in hopes that my children will at least be spared estrangement's broken heart.
None of us will be spared a broken heart if we love.
There will be holidays, where absence is so painful.
Where there is the natural separation of love.
It seems to me, there has to be a different modes of brokenness.
Where one has loving memories...
and, then those filled with pain and sorrow.
I guess, the tragedy of estrangement is that the memories of past are tinged with sadness. Happy seems to be false and hard to find. I can't know what was a real connection.
For those who have happy memories hug them near.
All this to say, I face these holidays, with the complications that estrangement brings.
Beauty and sorrow mixed to make a complicated tapestry.
