The purpose of this blog, my heart of this blog, has been to not just share my story, but take away some of the stigma of sexual abuse and trauma, take away some of the stigma of counseling, of mental health issues. I want to give others knowledge to help them to see the truths of these matters, and I want to help others find the courage to face their own pain. But I am more than those stories.
I've been working on a few posts simultaneously, trying to figure out what's next, what's "right." Perhaps that anxious honor's student mentality is creeping back in a little too deeply. There's no grade I'm going to get from any of this, no GPA I'm trying to attain, no cord I'll get to wear with my graduation gown because there's simply no graduation. All the same, I want to do justice to my own story and empower others, while also empowering myself by allowing myself to use my voice in a way I haven't before. The last two posts about Tim really just wrecked me. The last post took a lot of hard research, and I feel so much lighter now, so much more free, so I'm glad I wrote them, but they emotionally wore me out. My brain's been struggling to stay in the present, and I've just been trying to take care of myself and give myself some time to rest and heal.
And now, right now, this season, the words aren't coming easily. Explaining who I was and where I am now is not easy. Christmas has become the hardest season for me. Then add in the short days, and it's not a good combination. When it gets dark outside, I get sad, I feel like I can't get anything else done in my day. So when it gets dark at 530, 6 in the afternoon, I feel paralyzed by about that time every evening. I get angry at the sun, at the darkness, at my inability to do anything once it's dark. I just want to disappear until Christmas is over, the days are longer, and the sun gets a more reasonable bedtime.
Let's back up. Some people say I talk about my past a lot, and they are not wrong, but putting the pieces together of how one thing led to another which led to another has been very freeing for me. I always want to know how things work. And this has been like a puzzle for me, except it's my own life I'm putting together.
April 20, 1999. Columbine High School. The biggest mass shooting at a grade school up to that point. There had been a good deal of other smaller school shooting events up to that point while I was in middle school, and I also was aware of them. When Columbine happened, I was 13, in 8th grade, about to head to high school with no idea what would be in store for me there. My first grandparent had died very suddenly 2 months prior, almost the same day my Mom had had a major surgery, and that had already shaken me and made me think about death. Columbine news was everywhere. Stories were coming out about Cassie Bernall being shot after she was asked if she believed in God and answered, "Yes" (We now know that story isn't true, but her faith was still real). Stories about Rachel Scott's incredible faith were coming out. Books were made about them both, I read them all. I went into high school with the mentality that any day could be my last, any day my school could be the next Columbine. And I wasn't sure that I knew where I would go when I died.
I started a serious faith journey at that point. I needed to be certain of my eternity. I had grown up Catholic and was confirmed into the Catholic church that year. I'm thankful my parents thought it was important to raise me in church, and I'm thankful for that foundation, but I had a lot of questions. I started looking deeper into the Catholic church to find the answers, I started helping teach CCD (Catholic Sunday School) classes, and I also started talking to people of other faiths and denominations: Mormon and Baptist mostly, and this is also part of where Tim came in, since he was a Baptist preacher. I just felt that something was missing, no matter how much I searched. Finally I went with a friend to her youth group and learned about having a personal relationship with Jesus. That was the missing piece. I started a personal relationship with Jesus that night and never looked back. That was a little over a year after Columbine.
The story of Cassie Bernall's death started a sort of feeling of wanting to be a martyr for Christ through high school. This article even talks about that. Death was on a lot of our minds in high schools and youth groups after Columbine. School was supposed to be a safe place, but it no longer felt that way. On top of that, every year we'd have a few students at my school die in car crashes. Their deaths would be announced with the morning announcements, and I remember the feeling of my heart skipping a beat waiting to hear the name, to find out if I knew the person, and then seeing people in class start crying when they did know the person. I felt like I was always just waiting for that person to be someone close to me. Always just waiting.
Then it happened. I was in college by that point, not high school, but still only 18. December 23, 2003. My childhood friend and neighbor, Whitney, was killed instantly in a car crash in the early morning hours. The other two in the car survived but sustained terrible injuries. We were in Louisiana for Christmas, as we always were, so we didn't find out until we got home the day after Christmas. We picked up our mail from our neighbor, and she let us know before we saw it all over the front pages of the newspapers. Whitney was only 16. Mom and I got home, changed into more appropriate clothes, and went directly to her visitation that night. The next day our neighbor and I went to the funeral and burial together. I was a complete disaster. But at the graveside, Whitney's Mom hugged me, and she told me about the day I'd told Whitney I'd become a Christian. Whitney, out of her excitement for me, had immediately run to tell her Mom. That had meant so much to Whitney. Her death happened 2 months after my relationship with Xavier had ended, when I was still deep in that pain. During the year I have so few memories of, Whitney's death is very vivid in an otherwise void of blurry memories, but I still did not have the emotional capacity to grieve her death at the time. That year she was buried with her Christmas presents, wrapped and unopened. And I buried my pain.
Whitney and me being silly together, while we forced her brother to dress up with us
Two years later, the semester Frank had broken up with me and I had lost my friend group, when I already felt almost completely alone, it happened again. I had reconnected with a childhood best friend, Sarah, through instant messenger in high school and college, but I hadn't heard from her in a while. One day she showed up online again, and I got a message, but it wasn't her. It was from her fiancee telling me she'd died in a single car accident exactly one month before, and that she'd also been pregnant with a baby boy at the time. I immediately reached out to her sister, and we reconnected through our grief. Her sister told me that Sarah had kept a picture of me on her dresser until she died. Sarah died in October, I found out in November, and her birthday was December 19, right before Christmas. That semester was one of the hardest for me in college, and I also didn't have the capacity to really grieve Sarah's death at the time. Another pain I buried.
Sarah and me, the summer she came to visit after she moved away
Christmas for my family every year meant that Santa made a special stop at our house a few days before Christmas, and then my parents and I would head to Louisiana to spend Christmas Day with our extended family. My parents grew up on opposite sides of a small town, less than 3 miles apart. So Christmas Day involved lunch with one side of the family, an afternoon visit to more extended family, and dinner with the other side of the family, amidst a few precious days before and after Christmas with my grandparents. It was my favorite time of the year. It was the only time of the year I saw much of my extended family, and I just loved being with them. My maternal grandfather died December 13, 2009, and I grieved hard. That year I went to Louisiana for a very long Christmas break, starting with his visitation and funeral, and staying through a Christmas that we tried to keep as "normal" as possible. PawPaw lived a wonderfully long life, he was just shy of 95, but I knew that he was the glue keeping the family together, and we were going to fall apart without him. Over the next few years, we did. A few years after he died, I started going to Louisiana for Christmas by myself, as my Mom didn't feel well enough to make the trip. Then her siblings didn't even want to get together anymore. I hated every change made to my ideal Christmas. During that same time, my paternal Grandmother's dementia because obvious and quickly escalated, and she stopped being able to have Christmas at her house or even wanting to join Christmas festivities at all. I wanted my idyllic Christmas to last forever, and I hated every single change with Christmas.
The last Christmas with PawPaw, 2008
Alex and I got married in 2014, and I knew Christmases would have to start looking different. My last grandparent, my paternal grandmother, passed away on Halloween the year we got married, and that was the first year even I didn't go to Louisiana for Christmas. I knew Alex and I had to start figuring out new traditions, but I still wanted him to experience Christmas in Louisiana at least once. So in 2016 we went for a ridiculously packed tour of all of South Louisiana, visiting both my family and his. It was good to go, but it wasn't the same. I was glad he got to meet most of my family and see the places I'd talked about, and I got to meet more of his family, but it was also like an ending for me, at least as far as Christmas was concerned. I'm still rooting for family reunions to be held in the summer, away from a holiday.
Three years ago, my roommate from right after college, Kelli (the roommate I became good friends with, not the one whose nickname I cannot repeat), had a short illness before Christmas that landed her in the hospital. She came home for Christmas but was rushed to the hospital soon after Christmas for emergency surgery. She never woke up from surgery and passed away on December 29, four days after Christmas, leaving behind her husband and two very young girls. Years prior, I had been the only one also there when her husband had proposed to her, I'd taken their engagement pictures, and I'd been to their wedding. She'd married the love of her life and had the children she'd dreamed of, something Whitney and Sarah had never had the chance to do, but she was still just too young. Despite the grief, Kelli's funeral was one of the happiest funerals I'd ever attended. When I saw her mother, it became real, and my tears started, but her mother comforted me. She comforted me at her own daughter's funeral. She told me not to worry about them, that Kelli was completely healed and happy in Heaven, and they had her two little girls to watch grow up. The entire service was a celebration of Kelli's life on Earth and eternal life in Heaven, it was actually really beautiful, but still, it another Christmas overshadowed by the loss of a friend.
Kelli, Michael, and Bella during one of our cookouts
Christmas has been hard for awhile now, as location changes happened, as family celebrations changed, as grief overshadowed the holiday. And just as painful, I thought by now we would have a child to celebrate Christmas with, a child to see light up on Christmas morning. Struggling with infertility leaves me feeling like we're living somewhere in the in between. Not celebrating in Louisiana with extended family and their grandkids, but not yet celebrating here with our parents as grandparents. Watching our friends now celebrate Christmas with their kids, lighting up in pictures with Santa, opening gifts on Christmas morning, the excitement, the anticipation of a child. Watching their parents become grandparents. We're stuck in the waiting. Pregnancy is not coming easy for us. It's emotionally painful on so many levels. I've wanted to be a mother for as long as I can remember. Alex and I talked about our desire to be parents the day we met. I want to see our parents become grandparents just as much as I want to see us become parents.
I feel like I'm on guard around Christmas. "Who is going to die this year?" It's morbid, and I know that being worried about it doesn't help anything, but it's like I feel it in my body. My body tenses up automatically when the season gets here. I wake up with tears in my eyes more than normal. As the days pass, I can't help but feel the pangs of grief. December 13, when PawPaw died; December 19, Sarah's birthday; December 23, when Whitney died; December 29, when Kelli died. Sometimes I don't even know why I feel so "off" until I look at the calendar.
My counselors and friends keep telling me to try to make new memories, new traditions, new things to look forward to. That's how you rewire your brain. Some years are better than others. We've done Lights at the Zoo in year's past, I'm now in a community band that does a Christmas concert every year (except last year because of Covid). I've made a playlist of Christmas songs that don't make me want to vomit. Some years we get a tree up, some years we wait for the tree at my parents' house. I finally get excited now to go to friends' houses and see their decorations, there were a number of years I didn't even want to do that. My Mom always loves to decorate for every season, but Alex didn't grow up with that, so doing that here isn't something he goes into the season thinking of. He has tried to do what he can to help me celebrate, help me do what I need, even if it's not something that is important to him. My Mom loves to give gifts and watch people open them, so Christmas morning (whenever we celebrate it) was and is about sitting under the tree opening gifts together. That's what I grew up with. Alex's parents focus more on quality time together, and they just exchange gift cards. Now my parents get wrapped presents from us (read: Alex has no clue what they are) under their tree, his parents get gift cards, and I hand Alex the Amazon box when it comes in and say, "Open this, I think it's for you." Then I find things online and tell Alex I'm buying them for myself "from him." Everyone's love language is different, everyone's needs and wants are different.
This year my counselor suggested I find something to help me remember the friends I've lost during this season. Maybe an ornament with just a word that I know is for them. I haven't yet figured out what that could be. It'll probably be something I work on finding this upcoming year to prepare for the next Christmas season. Outside of that, I've collected pictures and other memories to eventually start a scrapbook to put my grief into something tangible, but I haven't started it yet. All the pictures and pieces I've collected sit in a box next to the empty scrapbook full of good intentions. Once I actually make the scrapbook I have planned, I know it will help.
As a child, I loved the traditions, the anticipation, how everything changed at Christmas into something magical. As an adult, I've realized there's a lot that the adults had to do to create that Christmas experience. As the adult now, if I want Christmas to happen, I've got to put it together, or some other adult has to put it together. But what do I want Christmas to be about now?
I started this post before Christmas, and it's now after Christmas. This year we had a quiet Christmas at my parents with just us, Alex, our three dogs, and Alex's parents' dog. Alex's parents' went to Louisiana to see the family they still have their while they still can. Two of my best friends from high school came into town, so I got to see them as well. I no longer feel like I'm "supposed" to be in Louisiana with family at Christmas, I'd much rather spend Christmas with Alex and our parents, where ever they are.
Christmas at my parents' with four dogs
A lot of my anxiety around Christmas comes from all the expectations I feel. There seems to be this constant list of "supposed to"s. I feel I can never get it right, and I always feel like I've failed someone somewhere. The fewer expectations I have, the less anxious I get about things not being "right." Yes, traditions are comfortable, and especially as a child, they are an anchor to hold on to. But as an adult I need to learn to be more in the moment without "supposed to"s and "should be"s. Christmas trees and decorations are outward signs to show that the Christmas season is here, but they shouldn't be what it's about. They are not the "magic" by themselves. Christmas, at the root of it, is about the birth of Christ, and His birth was anything but spectacular from an outside perspective. A child born in a barn, who slept in a concrete feeding trough, to a first time mother who was probably about 14, and a father who had to be a midwife out of pure necessity. There were likely goats and sheep and a donkey and maybe even cows watching when Jesus was born to those scared first time parents. How upside down is the Kingdom of God that He would choose to bring his son into this world in the most unlikely of places? Anyone who walked by that barn would have had no clue how important that baby was, how that birth would change the world forever. It was the shepherds, some of the lowest (and stinkiest) members of society at the time, who heard from the Angel and went and found baby Jesus. It was likely at least a number of months, if not a year or more later that the Magi came and worshipped him.
I love this painting by Gari Melchers, The Nativity. There's no fanfare, it's just so raw and real, with a touch of the Holy aspect shown. Mary is tired, sleeping on Joseph. She's just birthed a baby without the help of drugs or hospitals or midwives or any of the things we have today. She didn't even get a bed of her own. Baby Jesus is also sleeping. They are alone, probably wondering what was next. It's just beautiful.
Grief has so many stages. Some days it feels so far away, some days, although years have passed, it's so close. Sometimes I'm angry that Whitney and Sarah and Kelli were taken so young, too soon. Sometimes I grieve for what they missed, the family and friends they left behind. Sometimes I try to remind myself of the love Whitney and Kelli had for Christ here on this earth, and how while I'm struggling through Christmas here, they are getting to spend Christmas face to face with Jesus...how incredible is that? I try to remind myself of all the things I get to do that they missed. I try not to get grumpy about the ways I see my body aging, because aging is a privilege they never got. But I also look forward to the day I'll see Jesus face to face and also see them again.
Where do I go from here? How do I make next Christmas and all the ones after that a little less painful? How do I begin to look forward to the Christmas season again? I was hoping to have more answers, more ideas, but I really just don't have much right now. I want Christmas to be about celebrating the birth of Jesus, spending time with family and friends. But how do I release myself from all these expectations I put on myself?
Now we're at the end of the year, wondering how the heck 2021 went by so fast. Reflecting on the year as a whole. Another weird Covid year. An entire year of working from home, which initially started as temporary but has now become permanent. We added a puppy this year, to bring us up to three dogs. Also, it's been another year I didn't get pregnant. We're going into another year hopeful that this will be the year, that 2022 will be the year we'll get to have our own pregnancy announcement, our own ultrasounds, our own gender reveal. I want so desperately to experience everything it is to be pregnant, to watch my body change and grow a new life inside it, to feel the baby move, to hold the slimy potato baby for the first time. I want to see Alex's face light up feeling the baby move, meeting our baby for the first time. I want so desperately for us to be parents.
One step at a time is all I can do now. It will have to be enough.
