Over if you want it

I can't be the only one who marks the advent of the holiday season by Starbucks' range of Christmas merchandise.  It's the one place where I feel the spirit, hackneyed and commercial as it might be, with its candy cane handled mugs and softly melting Toffeenut Lattes, a shiny whipped cream ski slope into fragrant foam.  

I don't do holidays very well and apparently right after a break up, they're even worse.  In the first place, my family doesn't celebrate the end of the year.  While others hold gatherings and enjoy ham and turkey and warmly lit trees and good cheer, we chill on the couch and my father, a staunch atheist, grumps persistently at the various functions.  When I was much younger and belonged to a cheesy female acapella group, we were invited to sing at midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.  I thought how lovely it would be to be surrounded by song and laughing people for once.  I wasn't allowed to go.

In 2010, on Christmas, I met with some new friends from around the world on a snowy, desolate English campus.  There was no roast but we made our own magic with alcohol and instant Chinese food and a mini tree dangling with wooden baubles.  One of the boys drank a noxious mixture of rum, hot water and pepper to stave off a cold and the kitchen made my nose prickle.  We fought, fiercely happy, in the thin layer of snow on the lawn outside and came in panting, long past midnight, drunk on being young.

Last year, when the ex and I were still together, we lay in bed and Skyped and laughed.  He texted me a picture of his parents smiling and hugging on the couch.  He showed me all his stocking stuffers and the Kindle that I had convinced him that he should get.  It became a running joke between us, that the guy who had shunned the thought of electronic reading out of principle had become an even bigger Kindle advocate than I was.  He joked that he was so in love with me, I could convince him to do anything.  In January, I was going back to graduate with him in England and everything in life was looking up.

This time, my parents won't be at home for half of December.  One brother will be finishing school overseas and the other will be leaving for four long years of University halfway round the world.  The house will be empty and too quiet and I will be imagining people thousands of miles away, celebrating the season with everything they have ever dreamed of and everyone they've ever loved.

And I will work through the whole of December as I always do, to try and rack up leave for Chinese New Year or another festival that is more meaningful to me.

But I don't say all this to earn pity points or because I want to wallow.

Rather, if there's one thing I've come to learn from the grief process, it's that the fear of things is almost always worse than the things themselves.  I can't be any sadder than I am when I'm grieving.  Not as its happening.  After all, what is worse than already reliving the moment again and again?  And even though these weeks will be difficult and occasionally lonely, dealing is invariably better than dreading.

Sure, it'll be tough, but I'll have Starbucks, and silence and moments for reflection and writing.  I'll have friends and thunderstorms and fleece ponchos and scented candles in every flavour.  And I'll get the rest that you so badly need when you're trying to make peace with yourself.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if someone out there is reading this, if you're going through the same thing, hang in there.  We're all doing it, alone together.  It's not a bad thing to just sit with the sadness and let it work itself out.  And no matter how bad the idea of the holiday seems, thinking through, writing about and ruminating on things can end up being unexpectedly healing. 

Facing your hurt head on can be pretty tough.  Often, it's instinct to push it away or sweep it under the carpet just to keep the pain at bay, even if it just balloons there.  But now, instead of expending all my energy trying to fend off the thoughts, this Christmas, I'm just going to go there.