This isn't how Christmas should be (or is it?)
Twas the morning on the day after Christmas, and this holiday season nothing seemed to go as planned.
I've written the following lines time and time again but they never seem to come out right.
It was the morning on the day after Christmas and every time I sit to document the going ons of this season I get about as far as "Are you kidding me?" (Usually with more curse words strung somewhere in that sentence)
This was our first Christmas without Paris, and a large part of me is issuing a sigh of relief because never again will we have to experience our first Christmas without him. Another part of me is sighing because, while we have made it through the monumental first Christmas, we have years of more Christmas celebrations and birthdays and holidays to survive without him.
Shortly before Christmas, i ended up being taken to the hospital by ambulance. Once again my life narrowed into this moment of emergency. And while I did make it home for Christmas day, it wasn't without a level of exhaustion that i felt disqualified me from truly celebrating the holidays the way i would have wanted to, and bringing with me a collection of tubes and wires that were surgically implanted in my body.
This is not how it was supposed to be.
Though i think by saying that i'm letting on that i have some idea how it is supposed to be. I keep thinking that next year, in 5 years, sometime down the road Christmas will finally be what its supposed to be. When our house is filled with babies the way its supposed to be. When I'm healthy again.
At the beginning of December i started a social media detox. The goal of this detox was to become more present, and it worked. Days turned into weeks and I found i wasn't missing the constant hum of facebook and instagram at all. I did miss sharing my thoughts in my own tiny corner of the world, because i realized i am the kind of person that processes and grieves and learns in community and that my social media had become that outlet for me. But I traded scrolling through other people's pages for flipping through the pages of a book, and I spent more time with the people i loved and i found some perspective and hope and this sense that everything was going to be ok.
Until the day I was taken to the hospital. I still had 5 days left of my social media detox, and up until then being present hadn't been a struggle because i was present for the beauty in my life. But being stuck in a hospital room, feeling the ache of empty arms at Christmas, feeling the betrayal of friends and family that didn't support me the way i needed them to, I realized that while i could be present in the lightness of life i struggled to be present in the pain.
I wanted to duck away, to rage against the unfairness of it all, to wail against the fact that this wasn't how it was supposed to be. Because i thought i knew how it was supposed to be and this wasn't it. Because I felt pain, and discomfort and my immediate reaction was to move away from it instead of asking it what it was there to teach me.
I've become bitter in my grief. Angry and isolated. I have fallen into the mindset that the world revolves around me. I've become the person everyone else points at and looks to and whispers "Bless her heart, I could never handle that, thank God its not me."
Its another way we move away from pain, a way we separate ourselves. We make an us and a them.
Pain does that to a person. and this isn't a blog post where i tell you it's not really that bad and your reality doesn't matter because, trust me, i know that when your heart is breaking it feels like the end of the world.
I have a suspicion that I'm not the only one aching this Christmas. Feeling that this isn't the way things should have been. Wishing for a new reality, maybe the one that everyone else seems to have with their happy children and their big bowed presents and their glossy smiles.
This isn't how it should be.
Right?
I get to say that. I've survived the worst kind of pain one can endure. Look at me, look at my scars, look at how broken I am. I have every right to be bitter and angry.
Or maybe it's not that way at all. Maybe the pain has something to teach us, if we get present and stop ducking through every escape exit we see and using our bitterness, anger, isolation, pain as shields that keep us from the heart of the matter.
I'm not about putting up a happy front and pretending everything is great when it's not. But i am about being present, and seeing what my present pain has to teach me. I'm all about being honest, and sharing my story, because really that's all i have to give, and watching new things unfold in my life and the lives of others because of it.
So, through all of this, as I sit in all the thoughts of 'this is not how it should be' i have to ask myself 'or is it?'
Maybe all this pain is breaking me open to something bigger and more beautiful than i ever could have imagined. Not that it makes the pain worth it. It just is. Someone wise once told me you always have to look out for the collateral beauty.
Twas the morning on the day after Christmas, and sometimes the tiniest miracles find you where you least expect them. Like being home for the holidays. Like still feeling my son here, even though he's not here, and how his life broke me open to the most beautiful kind of motherhood i'll ever know.
Sometimes pain is the best teacher, if we only allow ourselves to be present to it. I know its hard. Me too.
Maybe what you need this Christmas is to know you're not alone and I can offer you that.
Christmas is just one day. We have an entire lifetime ahead of us. The magic, the miracles, the beauty, they don't stop. We only need to be present. Even now. Yes, even now.
I've written the following lines time and time again but they never seem to come out right.
It was the morning on the day after Christmas and every time I sit to document the going ons of this season I get about as far as "Are you kidding me?" (Usually with more curse words strung somewhere in that sentence)
This was our first Christmas without Paris, and a large part of me is issuing a sigh of relief because never again will we have to experience our first Christmas without him. Another part of me is sighing because, while we have made it through the monumental first Christmas, we have years of more Christmas celebrations and birthdays and holidays to survive without him.
Shortly before Christmas, i ended up being taken to the hospital by ambulance. Once again my life narrowed into this moment of emergency. And while I did make it home for Christmas day, it wasn't without a level of exhaustion that i felt disqualified me from truly celebrating the holidays the way i would have wanted to, and bringing with me a collection of tubes and wires that were surgically implanted in my body.
This is not how it was supposed to be.
Though i think by saying that i'm letting on that i have some idea how it is supposed to be. I keep thinking that next year, in 5 years, sometime down the road Christmas will finally be what its supposed to be. When our house is filled with babies the way its supposed to be. When I'm healthy again.
At the beginning of December i started a social media detox. The goal of this detox was to become more present, and it worked. Days turned into weeks and I found i wasn't missing the constant hum of facebook and instagram at all. I did miss sharing my thoughts in my own tiny corner of the world, because i realized i am the kind of person that processes and grieves and learns in community and that my social media had become that outlet for me. But I traded scrolling through other people's pages for flipping through the pages of a book, and I spent more time with the people i loved and i found some perspective and hope and this sense that everything was going to be ok.
Until the day I was taken to the hospital. I still had 5 days left of my social media detox, and up until then being present hadn't been a struggle because i was present for the beauty in my life. But being stuck in a hospital room, feeling the ache of empty arms at Christmas, feeling the betrayal of friends and family that didn't support me the way i needed them to, I realized that while i could be present in the lightness of life i struggled to be present in the pain.
I wanted to duck away, to rage against the unfairness of it all, to wail against the fact that this wasn't how it was supposed to be. Because i thought i knew how it was supposed to be and this wasn't it. Because I felt pain, and discomfort and my immediate reaction was to move away from it instead of asking it what it was there to teach me.
I've become bitter in my grief. Angry and isolated. I have fallen into the mindset that the world revolves around me. I've become the person everyone else points at and looks to and whispers "Bless her heart, I could never handle that, thank God its not me."
Its another way we move away from pain, a way we separate ourselves. We make an us and a them.
Pain does that to a person. and this isn't a blog post where i tell you it's not really that bad and your reality doesn't matter because, trust me, i know that when your heart is breaking it feels like the end of the world.
I have a suspicion that I'm not the only one aching this Christmas. Feeling that this isn't the way things should have been. Wishing for a new reality, maybe the one that everyone else seems to have with their happy children and their big bowed presents and their glossy smiles.
This isn't how it should be.
Right?
I get to say that. I've survived the worst kind of pain one can endure. Look at me, look at my scars, look at how broken I am. I have every right to be bitter and angry.
Or maybe it's not that way at all. Maybe the pain has something to teach us, if we get present and stop ducking through every escape exit we see and using our bitterness, anger, isolation, pain as shields that keep us from the heart of the matter.
I'm not about putting up a happy front and pretending everything is great when it's not. But i am about being present, and seeing what my present pain has to teach me. I'm all about being honest, and sharing my story, because really that's all i have to give, and watching new things unfold in my life and the lives of others because of it.
So, through all of this, as I sit in all the thoughts of 'this is not how it should be' i have to ask myself 'or is it?'
Maybe all this pain is breaking me open to something bigger and more beautiful than i ever could have imagined. Not that it makes the pain worth it. It just is. Someone wise once told me you always have to look out for the collateral beauty.
Twas the morning on the day after Christmas, and sometimes the tiniest miracles find you where you least expect them. Like being home for the holidays. Like still feeling my son here, even though he's not here, and how his life broke me open to the most beautiful kind of motherhood i'll ever know.
Sometimes pain is the best teacher, if we only allow ourselves to be present to it. I know its hard. Me too.
Maybe what you need this Christmas is to know you're not alone and I can offer you that.
Christmas is just one day. We have an entire lifetime ahead of us. The magic, the miracles, the beauty, they don't stop. We only need to be present. Even now. Yes, even now.
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