For Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year. Perhaps this is because I was raised by two people who take special occasions (birthdays, holidays and the like) so seriously that I myself now find ways to treat every day (no matter the occasion) as special. I often wonder whether my parents are making up for what they lacked or are paying forward what they were given—but regardless, there are no two people more in the Christmas spirit. My fondest memories of childhood are in the warm glow of our cramped family kitchen on Christmas Eve—and that distinct warmth, even as my innocence dissolved to hopping fences and sneaking out, is a constant. Warmth in my home is something I can count on. I know how lucky I am that this is true. I know I will pass down the weight of tradition, of special occasions, to my own children one day. 

Not only do I love making others feel special, I love sharing a moment with someone I see as special—and I see each of you as special, and I see our moments on page and on screen as shared. I’m not sure where I’m reaching you, but I know if you grasp at what I share—we’re holding on tight to two opposite ends of an invisible and never ending rope. I like to think it connects us. I like to think this is a global game of telephone (like we used to play at the lunch table in 4th grade). 

I digress. I’d love to share with you this piece of my writing as a holiday offering. Perhaps if you haven’t picked up a copy of I Didn’t Know I Needed This, my words here will inspire you to do so. Regardless, this is me reaching out. I hope you’ll hang on with me. 

***

Things are going to change. Things are going to change. Things have changed, they will continue to change, and we will always have the same heart and the same brain and the same dimpled cheeks as they change. We carry our smiles and our moments with us as they shift and mold and tear and grow. It is inevitable—and yet—in this December I want things to be the same. I am desperate for the present to always be mine. 

But things are going to change. 

That is a horse pill to me. That is the type of medicine I struggle to swallow.

***

One fear of mine is anyone worrying about me. I have grown to be the strong one so that nobody has to spend their energy on wondering if I’m ok. So when I came home for Christmas break my freshman year of college (and again my sophomore year) with a freshly broken heart, I feigned festivity and cheer to negate anyone asking if I was ok. People rely on me to be the one they can rely on. I can not break. I can not quiver. I can not show off my sorrow like this season’s trendiest dress. That is not who I am. My sorrow has always been something reserved just for me—with the lights out, when I am alone. So between holiday parties and cleaning up messes, I covered up my bleeding heart with layers of wool sweaters and bandages I changed when nobody could see. 

I had never been heartbroken before, and there I was, feeling like I’d been put through the wash, hung up to dry and forgotten about on a clothesline—attempting to navigate the pain of a first all on my own. Holding glasses of plum colored wine with shaking hands. Hating the way my clothes wore me. Doing a perfect job at being OK, so much so, that nobody thought to check in. I don’t blame them. To me, this was a success. 

It felt like I’d be treading water forever, while the cool of salt waves crashed over my head—burning my eyes and making it harder to see. This present was one I’d escape from by any means necessary. I thought I could leave the ache in Michigan and go home for a semblance of what it is to feel happy—but my mom wasn’t doing well and I’d been too consumed in my own adolescent misadventures somewhere in a Midwestern college town to have fully understood. Now a twin sized wound grew beside my broken heart. And I wished, I wished, I wished for everything to change. 

I wanted for so much, and then I felt awful for wanting. The Christmases of my childhood, a time where I couldn’t remember being worried—not about my family, not about myself, not about other people worrying about me. To lose the baby fat in my cheeks and to be prettier. For him to regret what he did. For him to want me back. For him to say I’m sorry. For us to trade I love yous. I would forgive and I hated myself for wanting to forgive. And more than anything I wanted my mom to feel better and for ease to take the place fear currently inhabited. On Christmas Eve, at 18 years old, I wished he would tell me he loved me so I could know that I was at least worth loving. I wished he would take care of me because I feared taking care of myself. I wished I could take my mother’s suffering away, add it to my heartache and handle it on my own. It felt like it would be easier had I been the sick one. I’d rather be the sick one pretending to be ok. I knew I was pretty good at it.

As the night softened into the best version of our Christmas Eve traditions we could pull together, I didn’t feel spiteful of the neighbors down the road or a new friend from college. Behind the glow of my Instagram screen they seemed to be celebrating a holiday season sans sickness and sans brokenheartedness. Perhaps I seemed the same to them—carefree, not holding back a sob amidst dinner. We were all pretending. Even me. I didn’t want anyone else to have to feel the heavy hurt of a goodbye or the struggle of a sick family member. I wanted time to take me to a place where everything had changed—where we were back in his bed, watching Love Actually side by side. Where my mom had roses of color blooming on her cheeks. I felt a sheen of guilt for hurting when I knew around the world people feel hurt and alone in ways I don’t even have the ability to comprehend. You can drown in a puddle. You can drown in the ocean. Your wounds are worth seeing as wounds. But I wanted everything to change. And I wanted to topple the Christmas tree over and call off the celebration. I wanted to skip the joy and fast forward over all the bullshit. 

But once I’d pulled myself together and put on a party dress, I went downstairs and faded into the nostalgic warmth, and the embrace of love that waited for me. And what I did have was clear—even if I was torn up over someone who’d let me go, even if we were sick or hurt or lost—there were so many people who loved me and so many people I loved back. I had been avoiding all love in the wake of the loss of some. 

***

If I could go back I’d tell 18 she needed to breathe. I’d tell her one day she’ll grow up (even though she thinks she’s grown now) and she’ll realize she’ll never stop growing. I’d tell her she’d realize what she’d known at 22 and 23 doesn’t hold a candle to the lessons she learned at 25. I’d tell her that in seven years she’d come home to the same house with people she hadn’t even met yet and she’d be begging time to stop. She’d want everything to stay as is. 

This would be unfathomable for 18 and she wouldn’t have believed me so it's good that I had no chance to tell her. Just like 20 never would’ve fathomed recovering from an eating disorder and 19 never would’ve believed I actually wrote and published a book. Those things would be unfathomable to those versions of me because those versions of me weren’t ready for those things. Our healing and our opportunity come to us when we are truly ready. Tonight, I do not wonder what is waiting for me around the corner—at 26 or 27 or 35. I do not wish for anything to speed up. I do not dream of a future at all, because I waste my precious present when I spend my own energy wondering what’s next. 

I am here today. 

We have to take it day by day. Sometimes we have to take it minute by minute. I know some of you will read this and say—I need to skip to the good part. I am sure some of you are sitting in your own bedrooms with your heart in pieces on the floor, wondering how you’ll face smiling faces or a kitchen full of warmth. I am sure some of you are sitting in the midst of far more harrowing grief and sorrow. I am sure you are begging time to skip a few tracks, to bring you to a place where you are in love. Where you are OK. I am sure you are reading this and you will say—I can’t do this. I can’t get through. But you can.

Again: you can.

And I know you will find that place—and I say this with certainty. Because the bad times are as temporary and fleeting as the good ones. We cannot pause, we cannot fast forward, we cannot go back. We can be patient. We can make the best. We can go where we’re wanted. We can remember that today is just a day just like yesterday was. Time flies no matter what. Your good times are coming. It is here and now. Here and now. Here and now. We are here and now. Here and now. Here and now. You are here. I am here. Hold on for one more moment. 

The scenarios you are manufacturing for the worst case are made up. The scenarios you could make up for the best case scenario would be just as made up. But if the key is both scenarios are made up—I am begging you to tell yourself the story of the best case. 

***

There is an inherent safety in everything staying as is. Especially in the moments where I feel momentarily secure—without a whisper of anxiety bubbling in my chest or the faint call of the tides shifting—I wonder why I can’t just freeze it all in time. 

Today I look around at all the luck that fills my childhood kitchen. There are handcrafted ornaments weighing down tree branches and bottles of wine organized in neat rows. Carols drift dreamily from speakers and food warms in the oven. We have a fireplace and a set of grandparents on the way. I have my brothers—with their bright eyes and assuredness, with their energized significant others hanging from their arms. I don’t pretend that they haven’t changed and I don’t pretend I am the person who knows them best—they’ve grown,  but I see them now as full and I see joy and I wish to just hit pause. I take a picture and I save it in the locket in my heart—one that has been broken and mended and broken and mended. I love stronger now for its broken moments. 

When everyone is OK, I am OK. I am an expert at worrying and although everything has changed, that has remained—just like my dimpled cheeks. My mom always says she’s only as happy as her unhappiest child and I cannot fathom why I understand what she means but I’m not a mother. Things are going to change. I am working on being OK with this fact. Once I wished for them to change with such fervency I was practically wishing away the present. Today, when I want everything to stay just as is, I think back to a time when I wished so hard and so deeply to be right here—and I take a deep breath and soak it all in.