This Christmas, I’m Not Trying to Get Back, I’m Learning to Pause

This year, I hoped Christmas would feel lighter.
Honestly, I feel more stuck than sad.

Christmas will never be the same for me.
There is a void that will always exist.
I truly thought I had turned a corner this year.
I believed that embracing who I am becoming, instead of trying to get back to who I was, would make this season easier.

It hasn’t.

Buying presents felt unusually hard.
Because of the weight this time of year carries for me.

My boys are loving and supportive, and I am deeply grateful for them.
They also have their own lives now.
Friends. Girlfriends. Priorities that are no longer centred around home.

That is healthy.
And it is also hard. I was no different at their age.

This is the first Christmas in a long time that I am not in a relationship.
But I’m ok being on my own, for the first time in decades. I’m prepared to let one emerge organically, versus chasing it. Forcing it to happen.

I am grateful for so many things in my life.
And still, there is an unfillable emptiness.
An absence that is hard to describe.
This is not about feeling sorry for myself.
It is about a different feeling that shows up for me this time of year.

Christmas, for me, is not about more stuff.
It is about more time. Time that used to feel full of anticipation.

Holidays are built on looking forward.
Counting sleeps.
Imagining moments before they arrive.

Grief disrupts that.
I am not always sad on Christmas Day.
I miss the excitement that used to arrive weeks before it.

Maybe the gift I give myself this year is reflection.
Or being more deliberate with my intentions.

I believed life does not come to us.
We have to seek it out.
Ask for it.
Work for it.

When I was younger, life felt easier.
Things seemed to arrive on their own.
Now, life feels humbling.
Relentless at times.

Lately, it feels like constant effort.
Like paddling against the current.
Trying to get back to a place that no longer exists. At least without so much effort.

That is exhausting.

Maybe this season is not about pushing harder.
Maybe it is about stopping the paddling for a moment.

Trusting that the river still moves, even when I loosen my grip.
Letting it take me where it wants to go, instead of where I think I should be. Trying to rudder myself to a different destination.

Not giving up.
Just letting go. Without unrelenting effort

And for now, maybe that is enough.