The Holidays: Why are they so hard?

Oh the holidays.

A time to enjoy (or tolerate) family. A time to appreciate and be thankful for our past year, to plan for and anticipate the upcoming year. Most of what I’ve seen posted relates to “How to get through” but I was so surprised by the “Why”. It seems obvious but what really is it that’s so “tough” about the holidays?

There will be a lot of remembering this holiday season. It will be hard to give thanks. It will be impossible to feel joy that I have no husband sharing Christmas with me. There will be a flood of uncertainty for the upcoming year. All of the hope and excitement and planning of a year ago was stripped away in an instant from both Ryan and I. Our happily ever after shattered. It’s not stuck, it’s not choosing to not “move on” for there are so many things I would choose to release myself from and have tried to work through but it feels like I can’t.

Months ago I sat on the bathroom floor of a bar at 4:30pm crying to a bartender who’d come in to check on me “I just want to forget; I don’t want to forget him, I just want to forget everything else.”

Having a bad day isn’t necessary choosing to wallow or neglecting to put my “big girl panties on”. It’s not having the energy to wake up and piece together your heart. It’s hating a person that you no longer recognize – feeling incompetent, absent-minded, hypersensitive, over-vigilant, broken, angry, terrified – but having no clue what to do about it or being too tired to do anything anyways. 

This holiday will place so many losses under the microscope for me. The first being all of the details of the day and the months following losing Ryan. Secondary losses will also be felt: to most others these are not obvious but occur as a result of the death of a loved one in varying degrees. There are so many secondary losses for widows.

They are the loss of future experiences and firsts with Ryan: Thailand, First Anniversary, First son and daughter (whom we'd each chosen a name), school graduations ceremonies that he will not be in the crowd for.

They are the loss of friends and family who walked away out of discomfort and/or disinterest. I hate the question of “do you have a support system?” because it makes me feel so worthless. The ones I do have are amazing. But I think I can only count them on a single hand. Maybe that’s my fault?

Secondary losses are just the huge reduction in physical contact and companionship as the one that was always there no matter what was removed instantaneously. It’s going from 100% to 0% in an hour. And for every day forward to come home to 0%.

They are the loss of financial security.

They are the loss of stability: of knowing what will happen to the home, who my emergency contact is, who will help when the dogs are sick or I am.

They are the loss of confidence.

They are the loss of identity and self.

How do I explain I still love unconditionally someone that is no longer here? How do I explain it’s ok that I do? That I always will. That I was all his until the moment that he died and that you don’t stop loving a person just because they aren’t present. Can you no longer love a mom or a parent if they’ve died? How do I explain I am a widow that has no marriage certificate? That commitment was there but time was simply not on my side. I thought I had all the time in the world... How do I explain that some days I’m terrified of moving forward? Especially for the comments that will accompany any of my choices from here on out, regardless of whether I asked for the opinion of another or not.

Who do I care for when the one I would have cared for an entire lifetime is no longer here to receive that love? Who cares for me? Who cares when I’m sick, tired, successful, disappointed, accomplished? What will happen when my mind attacks me or my whole body aches following a particularly difficult day – the screaming/crying/wailing where every muscle in my body constricts to try and force out the pain. Who is even left to care for me then? Ryan did all of that but he is not here and his absence leaves a void that is so remarkably obvious to me, especially during the holidays because it brings so many families and loved ones together but I feel like I stand off to the side, an outcast to all those around me, alone in a room full of people.

For those entering the holidays for the first (or 10th) time, within the holidays  is woven a pain – either dull or searing – which reminds them of a person that should be present but is not in this world. I don’t know what traditions to keep and which to skip. I don’t know how to appear normal on the outside while still searching for peace on the inside.

I will spend the holidays loving someone that is not here to physically reciprocate.

I will spend the holidays remembering our past Thanksgiving and past Christmases and past New Years.

I will remember the Thanksgiving that we told my parents we would be getting married. That he told them how much he loved me and he promised to take care of me. I will remember leaving the airport from Virginia and having my father say to him “She’s yours. Take good care of her” not realizing I would be his forever but only physically for another 52 days.

I will feel the anger and the frustration for not having more time to be his.

I will remember the Christmas that Ryan sat in the snow with me on the bunny slopes as my ass hurt from falling and I threw a pity party: “If I get back up then I’ll just fall again and I don’t want to hurt!” He sat there loving me and teasing and goading me until I stood back up and kept going, even though he should have been enjoying himself on the more difficult and more exciting routes as a seasoned snowboarder.

I will thank him for being so compassionate to me.

I will remember the New Year’s Eve that we ran 15 or 16 calls in 12 hours. I will remember picking up one intoxicated person after another and capping the night with an emotionally difficult call. I will remember how thankful I was that Ryan was the one in back with me for that. I will remember how skilled he was and how much I learned from him.

I will contemplate whether medicine is still a career I wish to pursue.

I will remember the wedding band I never got to see but I know would have been beautiful because he cared so much that it was. It didn’t matter, Sweetheart. I was marrying you for the incredible man you were not because you proved anything through gifting an object.  I have remembered so many promises made to you that I won’t be able to keep beginning with your birthday present and continuing through so many others this year alone. So many memories in 2015 and for decades to come that we weren’t given the time to make.

I will realize that at no point years into the future do I ever want more than a plain and simple band. No diamonds. No fluff. I want money to be spent on memories. Items and things are just nonsense that brings no joy.

I will watch every time I go out in public this month, the fathers taking their children to the stores to pick out gifts. It will burn. The explosion of couples out this entire month - holding hands, kissing, getting handsy and keeping each other warm - it all leaves a trace of sorrow as do the growing number and size of the pregnant moms seemingly everywhere I turn. Happily ever after moments are those you worked long and hard for but that you were able to see come to pass. I stand at the end of a long year missing some of my biggest happily ever afters. I put in the work, time, energy, disappointment, frustration, sacrifice for years and am still left empty-handed. Literally no one to lace their fingers through mine.

I hear the music in the store which I do enjoy but sometimes run across painful lyrics I never noticed before. I hear the radio and television ads about how to show love through gifts and miss the opportunity to find those perfect items for him. Maybe expensive and maybe not. Maybe just what would remind him that I know him and his personality through-and-through and that I was attentive to his needs and wants. That I love him. The commercialism of the holidays is so frustratingly obvious when no gift will bring any joy that could replace the pain of loss this year especially.

I am alone but I am not single by choice. I made the sacrifices, loved deeply, allowed myself to be hurt and at the end of the day it didn’t matter because it couldn’t keep him here. I am not single by choice so I cannot relate to the rantings of those that are but have been clustered with them because “married”/”coupled” or “single” seem to be the only labels that matter this time of year.

I thought I might fight to try the silver lining but am not sure if I can. I went with a friend this weekend to drop off gifts for kids. It was meant to be helpful and was not meant to garner recognition though the staff were very thankful. Unexpectedly it felt so empty. Perhaps better than binge-drinking Guinness on yet another anniversary but it still could not overcome the pain of this whole month so far. I do fear especially this year that the pain will far exceed the happiness that I can search for. Any happiness will come with a price: a battle to stay positive, to find the light and to embrace the opportunity. It will be exhausting to not break down, to not retreat into darkness or to share positivity. I think I’ve started this month too tired to perhaps just wander aimlessly through the month. Because grieving through the holidays doesn't happen on a single day; it began before Thanksgiving even started and will proceed incessantly from 1 commercialized holiday to the next through Christmas, New Years, and frustratingly all the way through to the middle of February.