I know Thanksgiving has already passed. It’s extra hard for me to write sometimes. Despite the chaos of traveling and cooking and cleaning and trying to keep my body and brain in one piece, I’ve been reflecting and jotting down…stuff. And I think these thoughts can carry us through the Christmas season too.

Thanksgiving Chaos

Thanksgiving in America is all about being thankful for the things that you have and sharing it with the ones that you love. Friends and family actually make a colossal effort to get together despite all the “stuff” they need to do in their everyday lives, the chaotic busyness that everyone finds themselves in, the jobs that lie to them and say they have to always be working and never take time off, etc.

Holidays are supposed to be restful, rejuvenating and reinvigorating us for the next week ahead. Honestly though, they can be super stressful and overwhelming, and they can possibly negate the very gratefulness we’re supposed to be cultivating. As in

• the expense of buying an enormous amount of food and special foods
• the tightrope dance we wobble on with family (especially ones you rather wish weren’t your family)
• the planning and preparation of making your messy house welcoming when you are far too tired to clean
• the 4 am alarms you answer in order to brine that turkey or put the ham in the oven
• the explosion of your kitchen from cooking 12 dishes simultaneously and then having no where to put the food and trying to find places your dog won’t counter surf when you aren’t looking
• the ridiculous jacked up prices of flights

Hell, the inconvenience and stress of traveling in and of itself makes you way more grumpier than grateful...whether it is a 12-hour drive or a flight that gets delayed or cancelled or a short jaunt with three screaming kids that makes it feel like you’ve been in the car 12 hours anyway...

I Promise I’m Not a Grinch

But why do we do this to ourselves? Holidays rarely become holidays…they become more like marathons that we pant and gulp air through, grit our teeth and force ourselves to do. We metaphorically double over like we have stitches in our side. We count down the days to Christmas just so we can have the relief of it being over.

Maybe, you have a wonderful lovely time with your friends and families…maybe you love to grocery shop and cook elaborate meals and fancy dishes that only come out once or twice a year…maybe you love hosting and creating that space where people can feel loved and welcomed, maybe you love decorating your house with seasonal décor….this actually all describes me, haha. But even with the joy that I have in doing all these things, I am still emotionally and physically drained to the bone, sometimes before the “day” even gets here. And I think a lot of you are like that too. And then we feel guilty because we don’t have enough energy to make everything perfect or we don’t have energy to go to that workplace Christmas party or we don’t have energy to clean our house after everyone leaves and our house stays a pigsty for a week. Which makes you feel even guiltier.

There Has Got to Be a Solution

Unfortunately, this year with everything that has gone on with me, I overestimated the Thanksgiving holiday.

I thought I could be around a lot of people so long as I had my service dog, Petunia, with me. I thought I could trek the 12 hours up and back to Pennsylvania by myself. I thought since I wasn’t hosting that I would be stress-free for the holiday. I assumed I would feel safe since I was surrounded by friends and family. But honestly…I absolutely was not ready to celebrate Thanksgiving.

The weekend before, my sister had planned a wonderful retreat with some girlfriends in the North Carolina mountains to celebrate my 40th birthday. We had a delightful cabin and fires in the woodstove and a brook babbling a stone’s throw from the porch. There were 9 of us and it was so refreshing to just be amongst women (I think I mentioned multiple times, “I’m so glad we left all the men behind!”). Some of them I hadn’t seen since what happened to me in August, and it was just so powerful to hug these women who have loved and supported me through these past three months, even if they lived far away from me. I did so well during the weekend (which was kind of a test run), I decided to continue traveling north to see my cousins and a close friend who couldn’t make it to NC, for the following week.

In hindsight I should have taken that weekend as a win and not tried to push it. I was only in PA for 2 days before I realized I couldn’t make it through Thanksgiving dinners (I had one planned on Thursday and one on Friday). I just couldn’t. There were too many people. Too much chaos. Men I didn’t know coming to both dinners. The stress of preventing my dog from growling and barking at every male who came near me and then keeping her safe around crowded, tight spaces and crazy kiddos was also weighing me down. My anxiety just ratcheted higher and higher and I started taking Valium again. I even woke up one evening with a panic attack.

As much as I wanted to be ok, as much as I thought I should be able to have a normal Thanksgiving holiday with my loved ones, I actually recognized that I needed to listen to what my body and brain were telling me. And I told my family that I was so sorry but I was really struggling and I couldn’t stay for Thanksgiving (and they were so gracious and understanding).

And then the biggest surprise was that I actually didn’t even feel guilty about it and just accepted it for what it was. It’s been 3 1/2 months and I am still healing and that is still ok.

All of this is a huge sign of growth for me!

The drive down was miserable to be honest, replete with sad memories of my life from before all up and down the east coast. And then, maybe because I was already emotionally compromised, flashbacks from my attack started assailing me. You can’t really escape your own car when you are driving yourself down the highway and have hours before you can get home and be safe. It was awful. BUT, I did finally make it home and I am proud of myself for working on getting better, for being honest with myself and my loved ones, and for choosing myself over what I thought everyone else wanted.

Insights? Hopefully?

This post is not much—more just a rambling of musings with no particular organization. But I did want to leave behind some insights…

The holiday season is supposed to be rich and magical and filled with wonder. And it can be. But it can also be a highly stressful, exhausting, often painful time as well. Sometimes it can even be heart wrenching as we remember loved ones who are no longer among us or we find ourselves alone, yet again, when everyone else seems to belong and be loved.

Being aware of how the holidays affect you can be liberating.

You might still not have the choice in how you celebrate. Perhaps you’re dictated by your children and wanting to make things perfect for them. Perhaps you are dictated by your in-laws and their irritating expectations. Perhaps you’re dictated by your damn HOA and have to put Christmas lights up. Perhaps you are dictated by your own religious traditions that have been ingrained into you for decades. If so, you may feel compelled to sing all the carols even if you’re sad, buy all the gifts because isn’t that’s what Christmas is all about because God gave us the greatest gift of all in Jesus, attend all the Christmas services because otherwise your pastor and small group members will think you unholy, etc. Oh my god, just saying all that exhausts me.

Just a gentle reminder…especially if you are like me and struggle with any anxiety, depression, PTSD and/or chronic pain…

• If you feel sad, even when everyone else seems happy, take time to be sad. I know it’s often just easier to squash our sadness down and ignore our pain. But honestly, even if you have to schedule 5-15 minutes to just go be by yourself and let yourself weep without inhibition, you are allowing yourself to grieve and are showing yourself love and kindness without denying that to others around you.
• If you feel stressed, maybe take a step back and actually ask yourself, “Does ______ have to be done?” Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe there is an easier way to do it. Maybe you don’t have to rush to do it. Maybe it’s completely ridiculous and you just never thought about it before. DO LESS so that you can enjoy MORE.
• If you feel grumpy, like my boyfriend, embrace it! The Grinch is also a part of our holiday social construct. 😉 Instead of isolating yourself though, maybe find someone who is equally grumpy and have a beer or whiskey with them and make fun of all those other people running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
• If you feel trapped by your religious traditions (and I am thinking specifically of the evangelical Christian church I grew up in), be mindful that all these things you do are still choices you choose to make. Remember that the real person you’re trying to satisfy is Jesus…and he would just want you to love him, be kind to others, and bring peace to the world around you. All of the other stuff is just superfluous.
• While being thankful and generous is a part of the holiday season, don’t forget to be kind and patient with yourself as well, whatever that might look like. Your life may be filled with more hard things than good things right now, but choosing gratefulness can really help reframe our perspectives and rescue us from spiraling in our own darkness and misery. Trust me, I know it’s not easy.

I wish each and every one of you the peace and wonder and beauty that this holiday season can bring you.

Keep on keeping on, friends.