It is interesting how long it can take to adjust to a new situation. And I am not talking about adjusting intellectually and/or emotionally, but adjusting at the very core of yourself.
2010 was the last Christmas I, my ex-husband and our children spent together. I guess that’s also the last Christmas Trouble & Trouble came back to the house for wrapping the Christmas presents, making ready for the celebration.
Since then, there hasn’t been a “home for Christmas” in a general meaning. Arriving here with bags filled, sleeping over, writing Christmas rhymes for the presents, the house smelling of breakfast coffee. Well, that is, except for 2012 which was like a movie home for Christmas! My Seattle daughter Becca arriving from Spain where she studied and Trouble 2 and Audrey from Paris where they stayed for the year. And it was -15°C (5°F) and 0,5 meter (1,5 feet) of snow!
So, this is my seventh Holiday on my own, except for that Hollywood year. My sister and I and our families have Christmas Eve together, but apart from that I am on my own here at the end of the road.
I know this of course, planning for the Holidays, entering them. Still, for many years I filled my kitchen with food and treats for a family and teenage sons’ tons of friends. And it wasn’t until two years ago I stopped buying 8 rolls of Christmas wrapping paper, addresses, ribbons and tape for an industries and intense Santa workshop.
Slowly I have adjusted to 2 rolls of paper and 1 bottle of mulled wine. And that paper last for three years and only half the bottle will be consumed. I have found it sad.
Through life crises and traumas appearing right at Christmas starting 20 years ago the Holidays turned from a still child starry eye to something dreaded and the color red made me sick from anxiety. But don’t we all want that child starry eye? When nothing yet is complicated and the only anticipation is pure excitement? Not to talk about New Years. I simply hate New Years Eve. A lonely evening and the moment of the year I am allowing self pity to be my companion since what I can do to push that shiny new year in a more positive direction for myself is very limited.
For many years I have avoided playing the favorite Christmas albums. It is just too painful. For as many years I have been wanting to write Swedish lyrics to the most beautiful and no doubt saddest Christmas song, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Now. An impossible task, that phrase itself is nothing but untranslatable, at least into Swedish.
Last year though I forced myself to take a seat in my yellow sofa chair in my yellow kitchen to listen to the album that hurts the most. Let the memories and the pain come and take care of them. One by one. There and then I knew what I needed to do.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas carries the grief and sorrow of golden days passed. But also the hope and faith that some day all the troubles will be out of sight and everyone being together again.
That’s the part where I can not sing along. I needed to write those lyrics for myself. I wanted to convey the need to take care of myself in the grief and the loneliness. To hold and carry myself. To make my empty house light and warm for myself.
That’s the part where I can not sing along. I needed to write those lyrics for myself. I wanted to convey the need to take care of myself in the grief and the loneliness. To hold and carry myself. To make my empty house light and warm for myself.
I found a way in to what became the lyrics. And I spent New Years writing. A very good and healing way of spending the transition to a new year.
Entering the Holidays this year felt differently. It was like what I have known intellectually and experienced emotionally before, now had settled in my bones. I was fine with not needing to buy more wrapping paper, a good thing actually. The only bottle of mulled wine hasn’t looked that lonely.
And for the first time in all these years I didn’t wrap any Christmas gifts for myself. I didn’t feel the need. I think putting words on that amorphous heavy blanket of Holiday anxiety gave me an image with contours, possible to see and grasp.
And for the first time in all these years I didn’t wrap any Christmas gifts for myself. I didn’t feel the need. I think putting words on that amorphous heavy blanket of Holiday anxiety gave me an image with contours, possible to see and grasp.
The fact that my house was literary cold for four days over Christmas (yes, that’s how the heating pump situation evolved!) was taxing of course and made me feel quite a bit sorry for myself. But it seems like something might be healing within me. At the core of myself. I hope so.
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