This week, I am taking a break from my posts about server-side rendering to share something non-technical I wrote recently while dealing with some intense emotions1. We do not get to choose when the symptoms of grief spend time with us, yet I am starting to see them as a gift rather than a burden. An opportunity to look deeper and peel away the intensity to see what lies beneath. This was one of those occasions. I hope that by sharing, I challenge the stigma that men face when publicly acknowledging their emotional and mental fragility and health.
One of my greatest revelations regarding loneliness has been that it requires much more than the mere presence, love, and companionship of others to be rid of it. It is such a strange prison in which to be cradled. A seemingly permanent margin between the self and everything else, yet with no obvious keeper maintaining it. A state of mind that the mind seems incapable of altering by will alone. I suspect it is a conceit, a curtain drawn on deeper emotions, much as boredom is a non-thing that we label to avoid labelling the thing, or things that are otherwise concealed.
So what is it? What does loneliness hide? A feeling of not being wanted, or worse, being unwanted? A fear of rejection? Of failure? Of accepting a failure that already happened? Grief? Is it just grief disguised as desire? Like listening to music, searching for that perfect song to fit the moment, but never quite finding it? Perhaps it is an intangible ghost of where one believes safety lies, or where it once lay.
And just as the feeling has taken me, in a moment it vanishes, lying in wait till the next time. An unease and uncertainty return. But what was ever easy and when was it ever certain?
Thank you for reading my ramblings. I am not some sort of expert, I am working things out as I go and doing what feels right for my own well-being. What you need may be different, so if you are feeling not quite right, please talk to someone. Therapy can be amazing. I myself started by chatting and ultimately breaking down in front of my doctor, but you don't have to be as melodramatic with medical professionals as I was in that moment.
You are not alone. You are not wasting anyone's time. Seek help. It is there.
If that all seems too daunting, there are online resources available to you, just a click away. Here are a few.
🥳The Holidays are upon us. In the US, what folks refer to as The Holidays is generally accepted to start around Thanksgiving – the third Thursday of November, though my observations suggest it really starts at the end of October, with Halloween. In the UK, in my anglo-Christian family, it was Christmas and the commercialised build up to it. Perhaps it is something else for you. Whatever The Holidays means to you, they are here and they can be a struggle for many. Suffocating societal expectations of Happy Holidays. Debt-fueling challenges to shower loved ones with gifts. Reminiscence of happier times. Remembrance of past pain. "Happy Holidays", we tell each other, persevering to manifest it as truth, wearing it like an inverted halloween mask, the scary facade on the inside. Upon us like a rabid gang armed with tinsel, Christmas music, and peppermint candy canes, intent on forcing us to ignore how we feel and join in with someone else's idea of fun, The Holidays lie waiting to sabotage some of us when we least expect it.
A few Christmas memories
😣The Holidays are complicated. This post is not intended as some War on Christmas manifesto or a downer on the holiday season. I have incredibly happy memories of The Holidays: traditions, roaring fires, home-cooked family meals. The camaraderie of working shifts with friends at the local pub. My Grandma's birthday on Christmas Eve. Waking up early to open gifts. Going to bed late after too much food and far too many drinks. Friends, family, church, caroling, and more. I fondly remember my time in the church choir1, singing at midnight mass, or walking the village, caroling door to door. Or my Nana staying with us on Christmas Eve so that she could spend Christmas Day with us. And that time my Uncle Peter surprised my Nana and the rest of us, showing up at the local pub in England after calling us from his home in Canada just the night before (he was really in a hotel nearby). Or the time I surprised my mum with a visit when she thought I was spending Christmas here in the US (and yes, it was my Uncle's visit years before that inspired that surprise). My first Christmas meeting much of my girlfriend's family long before she became my wife, and the time I was welcomed into the home of Gary and Carol to eat together with many neighbours and friends. The Holidays have been filled with happiness for me and I am grateful to carry these memories with me. Yet The Holidays also represent an unhappy, twisted, ugly place. A place that ripped my cousin away in a tragic plane crash and stole the sparkle of my friend Mary, both far too soon. The annual reminder my Nana will visit nevermore, that my Grandma's birthday will be remembered without her.
The Holidays are happy moments and sad, and these moments do not cancel each other out, they weave themselves together into a complex tapestry of deep emotion that can in an instant swing from joyful remembrance to helpless sobbing and back again. This is The Holidays for me. A complicated dance of happiness and grief. Grief is good, grief is healthy if we embrace it rather than dodge it. I find my grief is a journey, walking hand in hand with my emotions as I learn a new way to live without the loves I never expected to lose.
😔The Holidays are lonely. This year is my first year alone for The Holidays since my partner and I concluded our marriage was over, since we separated, since we divorced. This is my first time publicly acknowledging that as a thing that happened. It felt crass to announce it as some thing worthy of everyone else's attention. I do not know if that is because it is or because I am just afraid or something else. There have been many days where I wished for my Nan or Mary to show up for a cup of tea and a chat to help me work that out. In some ways, they did. Grief is complicated.
After reading this, you may think I am misguided to be alone right now or to be sharing all this so candidly. Your gut reaction might be to reach out and invite me over to spend time with people for The Holidays. Please don't, though I very much appreciate the sentiment. I already have the right amount of plans (I will be spending Christmas Day with a few of my friends) and I need to do this. I need to do this and I need to do it now, this year, this moment, with these feelings. If this isn't The First Holidays Alone then I have to wait a whole year before I can get past that seemingly arbitrary yet looming milestone. Right now, I need to spend time with me and my grief, and continue our journey working out exactly how things work from this point on.
🤗The Holidays are hopeful. The Holidays are whatever you need them to be. For me, this year at least, they are a time to reflect and to grow as I come to terms with my grief, my loneliness, and the path I have lying ahead, somewhere in the unknown. I have been here before and I cleared a path to get where I am, I know I can learn to clear a different path than the one I planned. You can too. Whatever you are facing as the year end draws near, whatever The Holidays mean to you, you have the strength to endure. We all have our own paths to clear, and no one is better suited to clear yours than you. You can do it. You have done it before. Do not let society shame you into thinking you are not succeeding just because you don't fit the Hallmark picture of The Holidays. You are enough, you are loved. 💝
this may surprise those that know me to be an atheist – our roads are long and winding, with many turns and stops [↩]
I struggle every day. I know you do too. We may have similar struggles, or different ones. We may notice each others struggles, or we may not. What you may struggle with, I may find easy or not even realise is a thing. The same is true in reverse. Sometimes, I am struggling so hard, I forget you are too. I am really sorry about that. I do not mean to disregard you or your struggles, or give the impression that these things do not matter. That is one of my struggles.
Sometimes, when my heart is heavy with the anxiety of a personal revelation, a growth opportunity, I find it hard to see beyond to a point where it will all make sense again. So, I write things like this. I am not seeking pity or likes or anything like that. I only want to share how I am feeling in case you struggle with this thing too. I know it helps me to know I am not alone and sharing helps that, because if we never share our pain, how can we appreciate each other's joy?
I struggle between putting out into the world that somedays I feel broken, and "manning up", dealing with it privately like "men" do. Some folks reading this will not be able to look past the ideals they have of what it is to be strong and will see this as weak; that's one of their struggles.
And so, to close. Whatever you struggle with, it is okay to not be okay. Take some time. Sit in the sun with a cup of tea, or pet a cat, or whatever it is that helps you escape the moment and find a little pocket of peace. Maybe even share a story about it and help someone else who is finding that same struggle. You are stronger than you think and we are all stronger together than apart. You are loved. You are you, and no one else can be a better version of that than you already are. <3
