I wish I could tell you holidays without your kids gets easier.
That with time, it doesn't feel so sad. To tell you that, I'd be lying and giving false hope for your years to come. I wish I could say time heals all wounds but it doesn't. Time continues and moves forward without a thought or care on how anyone feels about it. Time doesn't care how you feel. It will continue to push you forward and as it does, you adapt, you molt, you change.
If this is your first Christmas without your kids, my heart feels for you. Truly feels for you.
My first Christmas morning without my kids was eerily quiet. My home felt sad. My heart felt lonely. I got up as I would every day, I made coffee(as that's what I still drank), journaled then sat on my couch in silence. I looked under my tree with presents that would wait until I saw them. I sat there and cried. Part of my journal entry that day was, "This is my first Christmas morning without my kids...I seem to have a lot of firsts this holiday season...I'm not sure I like this club of firsts, but I've really no choice."
I remember walking to the door of each of my kids bedrooms to see empty beds. I'd already gotten over the loss of not tucking them into their beds each night. But seeing their beds empty on a Christmas morning felt more like a death.
The pain of not seeing your kids after divorce was and is a form of grief. It's a loss. A loss of time. A loss of special moments. A loss of caring for them constantly especially if you've been the primary caregiver as they've grown. It's time that can never be given back and I can say over the years, I made sure to cherish each moment because I know the years of them living at home would be short. They only live with us for a short time before they move on to their own passions and desires. I no longer feel the pain of sadness, my stage of grief now leans towards anger when it rears its head. Anger that my time with them is shorter.
If I can give one piece of advice for the holidays it would be to keep yourself busy. Visit family or friends if they are close, plan a trip, complete a task, declutter or dejunk. Whatever you find to comfort your space and time. For me, when I feel over whelmed...I clean and dejunk. I find comfort in purging things I no longer need. I clean out my closets, I organize. I plan a trip.
Whatever works for you...find it.
Find what comforts YOU to get through your hard. As time goes on, you will start to recognize what you need to get through your hard and you will do those things instead of sitting in paralysis. Please make sure when you do have your kids, that you live in the moment. Enjoy it! Be present and count what blessings you have. Your kids want the best of you and you don't have time to waste the moments you do have with them!
xo
Jessica Anne
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Feel It to Heal It - How I broke through in therapy to push through all the deep caverns that are me
Feel It to Heal It
You will get through it. People would say this to me and I would think, “HOW?” HOW??
It takes time but it is true.
I realized I liked to keep busy so I didn’t have to feel anything. I didn’t have to feel my sadness, my pain, my betrayal.
I didn’t want to have to deal with any of it. I didn’t want to face reality. I didn’t want to admit that my life was changing.
I remember one therapy session, and I’ve had many, I remember succumbing and collapsing into how I felt. I was ready to move forward but I knew the way forward for me was to go completely through it. No more sugar coating, no more bullshit. I wasn’t someone, and still am not someone, that can just move on without fullying thinking about it first. I saw friends go through some really difficult situations to seemingly move forward so simply. Did they really? I know I’m not that person.
In that therapy session I remember saying, “Today, I just need to feel it. I need to be this little girl curled up in a ball, sitting in the corner, alone.” “Don’t touch me, don’t talk to me, don’t ask me how I feel or what I’m thinking.” “I am the little girl in the corner trying to process my life.” I was sad and I was grieving. My life was changing. I felt alone and I knew my life was changing at a pace I could in no way control. I had come to a place of knowing that no one could get me through it but me. It was a journey I needed to take alone because this is my story and no one can know exactly how I feel.
So in my next therapy session, I said, “I’m ready to talk about how I feel and if I’m going to carve out the deep caverns that are myself, I’m going to carve them all out.” I went deep. I went full in. I talked about the breakdown of my marriage and how I had given it my absolute best to try to save it. How it takes two people to make it work and I can only do so much. And to go even deeper, I came to the realization that the loss of my brother when I was nine and being bullied in high school all defined who I had become too.
I talked in a way that I became an open book where I do not take anything personally. I was no longer afraid. I have nothing to protect. That’s what it truly was. I was protecting everyone else as if they were more important than myself. Now I am fully, deeply me. And I love me no matter how someone tries to make me feel.
When I think about some of those really dark days, I think about how far I have come in my journey and how my new life is just getting started.
I am me and I am proud of what I am becoming...
XO JessicaAnne
