Holidays After Trauma

First let me say that trauma is a continuum.  Part of me doesn't feel legitimate naming myself as someone recovering from trauma, but enough friends and therapists have independently named me so, that I am accepting that.

Today is the Sunday of Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.  In the past I would have been planning or deep in the middle of cooking a big family dinner, complete with gorgeous autumn decorations and turkey.  I would have enjoyed finding as many chairs as possible and getting creative with table arranging so everyone had a place.  The older I get, the more this sort of ritual is meaningful to me it seems, and the more precious my family is to me.

My "broken" family.

Today I slept in and awoke with a headache (no, not an "Oktoberfest headache," the regular kind) and perimenopausal hot flashes, and discouragement.  I thought I would be content this weekend because my girls all have their partners' family meals to go to, and my son seems just content to be home and spending time with me, and later his dad.  I have plenty to keep me busy, including a backlog of graduate school reading, cleaning, and ironing.

Duh.  I'm still a classic codependent, eh?  "So long as everyone else is happy, I am happy."  I didn't have a sweet clue as to what *I* actually wanted or needed.  It didn't even occur to me that I might not be okay.

So, today I am inordinately sad (who gets to say what "ordinately" sad is?) that I am not doing a traditional  meal with my kids, going on a walk in the autumn colours, and generally enjoying my family.  Today looks like it will be a day of releasing more pent up sadness and loss and grief.

Yay.

It's okay.  There is no statue of limitations on grief, no matter how much our culture (including me!) is uncomfortable with prolonged sadness.  If "just being with and accepting" the sadness is what needs to happen today, so be it.
God knows, I am not alone.
 
It's NORMAL to feel more deeply during holidays.  It is NORMAL for the contrast between what is and "what should have been" to ache most intensely right now.

So I will cry some, write some, pray some, and be very gentle with myself today, and this too, shall pass.

In solidarity with everyone for whom holidays, for now, seem to be more painful than joyful:
You are not wrong.
You are not alone.
You can make it through.

Alison