This time last year I spent wishing my life away, wishing that it was all a mistake. Wishing that people were playing a cruel joke on me. Imagining that this wasn’t my life but that I was living someone else’s life and that the real me was still living a happy and blissful life in love where nothing had changed. Each day was spent running on adrenalin and sleep was non-existent. Spending my nights writing endless letters to him, begging him to come back, writing about our memories. Pleading for him to walk through the door. Driving around late at night searching for him and when exhaustion kicked in I would lay awake in bed and scream for him. The longing I felt and the pain in my chest was so intense I thought it would never leave. So I thought of ways I could join him, ways to try to see him again, to speak to him, to hold him. This time last year was the darkest time of my life.
To celebrate Christmas this year will take strength. I am no longer a fan of this time of year. Last week I tried to explain to a friend of mine why I no longer like Christmas. I told her it’s because the one person I wish I could spend the day with isn’t here anymore. And that is painful. Our conversation ran along the lines of every day is difficult but holidays and special occasions are harder. You miss your person constantly and wish you could be with them again. You long to be with them again. The following words spilled from her lips, “You can’t live like that, what is the point if you’re in so much pain?” I assume she was waiting for me to say something like “oh it’s not that bad” to make her feel a little more at ease but instead I told her the truth and exclaimed “Exactly! You just hit the nail on the head!”
Many of us are only here for the ones we love. Unable to inflict the pain we live with daily onto the special people in our lives. So it’s ok if we don’t want to celebrate the holidays, if we choose to be a little selfish this time of year. This season is about family and love and it’s unfair that our families are now broken. So this week I choose to be selfish with what I need to do to get through. Because I’ve been selfless since the day he died by choosing to live for the ones in my life who are still breathing.
This Christmas I will most likely wake wishing I were in his arms. And I will most likely spend part of the day in tears. I don’t care for gifts this year because the one thing I want, I know I won’t get. And don’t be surprised when I don’t wish you a merry Christmas, because for me there is very little to be merry about. Instead I will say to my friends in grief, I wish you as much peace from grief as possible on this day and a bright and prosperous New Year. Much love Kaiti xox