happy(ish) holidays.

let’s be real. the holidays are genuinely terrible for a large number of people. all this talk of joy, merriment, and cheer makes a person want to jingle all the way… away, FAR AWAY… to a private island to be alone, or to a huge bed, where one can sleep until january.

for those who are reeling in grief, suffering from loss, struggling with illness or loneliness, the holidays are a reminder of all that is lost, and all that might have been. when getting through the day is already impossibly hard, the holidays are filled with emotional triggers, challenging social engagements and huge gaping holes at the dining room table.

i started to feel the foreboding feeling towards the end of november. i knew that my parents were going to want to write their annual christmas letter (which i was dreading), and then we got word that my dad’s lung surgery was going to be just a few days before christmas (which meant he would probably be in the hospital on christmas day). i wanted to skip christmas entirely. how do we wish for peace on earth when all i want is peace in my own body? how do we celebrate and pretend everything is okay when nothing is okay? how do i navigate the holidays when the season i would prefer to ignore is so important to my family?

for me, the magic of christmas has always been through the eyes of children. their sense of wonder and awe, and their anticipation. i’m sure if i had my own children, i would feel differently. but i don’t have children. and worse – i have a terrifying cancer diagnosis and a year of devastating loss. the magic is long gone. the traditions seem empty and meaningless – if not distressing. the pressure to be happy, to laugh and to appreciate gifts is stifling.

the lead up was causing me a tremendous amount of stress. i was jealous of my friends with kids. i was devastated (as expected) when the christmas letter came through and i mourned all that should have been in the year that wasn’t. i was sad for other friends and acquaintances who had experienced deep loss this year, and were also grappling with their own complicated feelings around the season. i was seeing the season as i never had before. i sensed that it was my job to guide the family about how to make christmas work for me, but my only solution was to skip it entirely.

i know i sound like a scrooge, but i don’t actually hate all things christmas. it is true that i have skipped christmas in the past to hike in patagonia, be at the beach in thailand and drive around new zealand. but that might just be that i like travel more than christmas. i do like a modest amount of decorations, and i appreciate christmas music in december. i enjoy wrapping christmas gifts and get satisfaction in curling the ribbon just right. i love snuggling up in a cozy blanket to watch ‘love actually’, which has become a yearly tradition. i don’t hate christmas. but christmas hurts. and it hurts deep.

nobody wants to talk about hard or sad things at christmas, so you’re forced to pretend.

and it turns out, i’m not the only one that feels this way. so many people are in pain during the holidays. there is a whole community of people online who have experienced the intersection of grief and the holidays. somehow, they are able to articulate their feelings around the season in a way that makes sense to me. a friend recommended the podcast ‘terrible, thanks for asking’, which is hosted by a woman who lost her husband to brain cancer. every december, they do a whole episode on how much the holidays suck for people who are having a hard time. emily mcdowell (creator of the the original empathy greeting cards) has a whole section of her website that includes gifts for people whose year totally sucked. also, the website Refuge in Grief has resources for getting through what she calls those terrible holidays. even instagram has some thoughtful and intuitive artists who managed to hit the nail on the head:

as gretchen rubin says, sometimes impossible circumstances make it impossible to be fully happy. fifty percent of my immediate family has a serious form of cancer, and my dad had little chance of being well enough to be home for christmas. it is hard to sugar coat those facts with eggnog or spiced nuts.

and then… unexpectedly, the day came and went rather uneventfully. dad was in the hospital recovering from his surgery, so we transplanted christmas there for him for a few hours. my brother and i found our most favorite childhood made for tv movie on youtube and got a good laugh at the terrible acting. i took our dog kahla for a walk, and enjoyed the white christmas that so many dream of having. we even had a good laugh (and a slight panic) when my mother accidentally locked down the oven by pressing the cleaning function, which delayed dinner rather significantly but luckily did not char our whole foods pre-prepared christmas dinner.

because the constant uncertainty and my changing relationship with hope has made it difficult to be future-focused, i am more able to live in the present. and while christmas is not my holiday of choice, i was still able to find some gifts (even though they might not have been the ones i asked for): enjoying a chapter of my book next to the fire, my mom’s scrambled eggs just the way i like them and walking with my dad down to tim horton’s for a christmas day family coffee at the hospital.

suffering doesn’t go away on the holidays – in fact, it intensifies. yet, so to does the simple and the mundane. the boring, the normal… it begins to shine brightly like those annoying flashing lights on the christmas tree.

to anyone reading this who is having an unhappy holiday, you are not alone. it is okay that you’re not okay. it is okay if the holidays kind of suck. you are loved.

*this family photo was taken on december 25th, 2018 at the ottawa hospital, general campus. the nurse who took it was cheerful and kind, and working on christmas. it turns out that a lot of the world does.