The holidays can be hard for many of us parenting with ACEs. This time last year I found out my estranged father died. It was such a relief. For months, I kept thinking, "I love having a dead Dad." And I know it's not a thought most people have had.
But for my whole life I carried my father's life like a question I could not answer. Even though I had not seen him regularly, for decades, I never stopped wondering about his life, his absence and his own childhood.
We never stop being related to family of origin. No matter our age. And Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving and my birthday and his, they were times I thought of him. Or at weddings or whenever I imagined other people who had living or present fathers might be able to call on, be with or be there for a father.
It was not a constant agony. It was not a gushing and open wound. It was a root canal that caused nerve damage. It was a root that got ripped into and out. It was an ache or a throb that no one could see. And I would feel it if a memory bit down on that side.
Holidays can be a time when we deep dive into memory or emotion.
Depending on our ACEs, we may experience that differently.
We may be wishing we had meals and memories like we see on television or hear our friends talking about. We may be facing the loss of seeing family if doing so isn't emotionally or physically safe.
Holidays can be complicated or even brutal for many of us.
Although we are adults now, we may have children of our own. We may be navigating and managing and preventing them from the abuse, neglect, addiction and illness that may still exist in our family tree. We may be balancing our wish for them to have loving relationships with extended family. Or we may be watching in-laws, in awe, at how differently they do family, holidays and life.
We may be grieving the mistakes we made from our own unhealed pain, the ways we too were less than what we hoped, wanted or our children deserved. We may be recovering from addiction, divorce or a physical or emotional ailment.
It doesn't mean we haven't found healing and forgiveness. It doesn't mean we don't experience or extend grace or gratitude. It's not that we don't have understanding and compassion for ourselves and others.
Or that we are without any joy. For many of us, holidays are a time of pride and perspective when we look back at where we came from and where we are and are grateful. We can feel this as well. Maybe we have a gratitude journal we fill out or look over.
Maybe we revel in the normalcy our children have feeling appreciative that they are safer, healthier and happy while children in ways that might protect them for life.
Maybe we have successfully addressed many of our wounds and feel less pain, symptoms or angst than ever before. Maybe we have helped our children, ourselves and maybe even our extended family or made peace with who and what may not change in this life.
The holidays bring me into so many emotions.
"Stop your moody goosing," my aunt Jean used to say. That's one voice I hear.
"Be curious about what comes up." That's writing teacher advice. I honor that as well.
When my 2-year old dog can't stop licking, barking and spazzing out my boyfriend says, "so much of the muchy-ness."
I feel pretty "muchy" myself at this time of year. The holidays are often a heavy or hard time for so many.
Chances are though that there is at least a bit of loss, grief or some anxious ache baked in to the mix while making apple pie or applesauce. I love to cook with apples but I rarely feel love-filled. Instead, I'm often the crab apple in the room.
How do you get yourself through the holidays? Are they especially hard for you, as well? Do you have techniques or strategies to cope? Do they holidays throw you off each year, like clockwork, and yet it takes you by surprise each time anyhow?
My coping has varied.
Some years, I have boycotted Thanksgiving. Other times I have served food at to homeless veterans while hoping someone, in another city, was doing the same and serving my father.
I have had meals with friends and I have helped my mother peel potatoes. I have made homemade apple sauce and I have drowned my sorrows in a big bowl of mashed potatoes. I used to despise the time from Thanksgiving through New Year. I couldn't fake the false cheer and I couldn't pretend I didn't crave more closeness and connection.
Last year, we spent Thanksgiving with our dear friends, a new tradition we will do every other year. And this year, we will spend Thanksgiving with my family. Too much time with my family isn't good for me, even though all the abusers are no longer present or living. Too little time with my family isn't good for me, even though I had a high ACE childhood. I love my family. My family loves me. That's primal, deep and forever.
Even when we can't or choose not to be together. That's part of what makes it so complicated.
Plus, I want my daughter to know who her relatives are, to have a history and extended family. And there are losses I can't compensate for. I couldn't give her my birth father, not when he was live and not now that he is dead.
That's a strange loss to grieve but it's there.
I try not to feel only the grief though. I try to make sure to be and bring new and different concepts of family and love and holidays into our home as well. I don't want to be so lost in the aftermath of my long-ago childhood that I forget my responsibilities as mother, parent, friend and partner.
How are the holidays for you?
Photo by Margaret Bellafiore. Art from Body Language exhibit.
Comments (1)