It’s the week in between—when our home rhythms slow, work stops, school schedules pause and life becomes binge-watching movies, eating comfort foods, and playing with Lego sets. As 2025 approaches, I feel only an ounce of hope. My spirit is heavy with the status of our world. Too many places are swirling with violence and pain. I’m finding parenting the teens and young adult years to be bittersweet- holding that tension between awe and trembling with fear.
It probably was not a good idea to have an MRI done in the days leading up to Christmas, but it was the only day they had when I scheduled it six weeks ago. So, in the late evening last week, I was dropped off to spend a few hours wrapped in a tube as the IV line dripped and the noise-canceling headphones played classic Christmas music.
I started 2024 in an MRI machine. It seems fitting to be ending it in one too.
Nothing brings your mortality closer to reality than being laid out in a coffin-like structure that sits mere inches from your face with no way out. While I tried not to allow the panic to win, my mind and me had a few hours of uninterrupted alone time. She had so much to tell me about this year and how she thought things had gone. My inner critic can be cruel, but in this she was calming and wise. Perhaps it was the heartbeats in my ears or the truth of how quickly life shifts one test and one diagnosis and one loss and one gain at a time that had me leaving that tube feeling a little morbid. It could also be the remnants of the Ativan.
Whatever the reason - I face this last day of the year a little bit numb.
The Things They Don’t Tell Us
When you are estranged from family, holidays are weird. What once was rushing to meet adults’ expectations about holiday participation as a young couple with young children becomes this hauntingly quiet routine on the other side of division. When you are the black sheep - these moments of family chaos and pain come to a screeching halt. When you stop showing up on their terms, their anger is loud. When you leave things undone and unsaid, their silence is even louder.
So, our holidays which for years were spent dodging the needs of others while juggling their rage - becomes something very different. This is not a complaint. It is an observation. Navigating the quiet, building new traditions, and sitting in the tension of what being estranged means is very loud in these in-between moments. When life is not full steam ahead, we notice the missing pieces that “could have been” as nostalgia tries to creep in around us.
I believe nostalgia is a trap. It’s a mirage of untruth. It projects an image of what was with a hazy rosy veneer. The veneer isn’t real. It tries to show us an untruth of what was about a people and a place instead of confronting us with the reality of brokenness. Nostalgia is trying to rewrite history to make it more palatable.
During the in-between, we second guess our choices - the tough steps we’ve taken to protect our mental health and the safety of our children from cruel patterns. But that doesn’t mean we don’t feel the phantom pains of what could have been or what should have been if family was able to show up healthy and whole.
My grandma once asked why we couldn’t all come together for a holiday and fake it. I wonder if that’s what all the smiling, laughter filled families do? Are they faking it? Are they ignoring the very real elephants in the room? Am I a black sheep and a cycle breaker or am I just not able to play pretend?
When Things are Left Unsaid
I don’t live in regrets. It’s a waste of time. However, I do live in spaces where things have been left unsaid. That’s what this last week of the year feels like… a dark space where unsaid and undone things haunt us. They remind us of what could have been if we had spoke up or taken a different path.
And morbid feels like an inadequate description for the present. Heavy. Unfinished. Undone.
Sorting and Sifting an Old/New Year
The heavy things can take longer to sort in my 40s so at the start of a new year, I take my time. Instead of rushing to set goals and map out what comes next with anticipation and hope, I sit with “god in the yard” for a few weeks. Perhaps this is a consequence of middle age? Slowing down and taking my time to reflect and focus forward is also a consequence of my current state of spoons and being. I’m not in a hurry. I’m unable to rush and hurry - it’s not physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually possible anymore.
As I reflect on where I have wandered in 2024, I list out ten things both good and not so great that happened… both the glimmers and the dreadful. I list out a few goals for 2025 as I look at what I had hoped to do in 2024. I set aside what didn’t work or fit. I take up what I had set down and would like to keep. It’s like packing for an adventure - what shoes are not realistic and what outfits are comfortable for this next portion of the journey.
Yes - this means looking at friendships and relationships. Releasing what I have held too tightly that is unhealthy for what brings life is both a people thing and a state of being thing.
Yes - I make a list of things that need scheduled and items that need paid.
I prioritize health and family. I focus on learning one new thing.
But I’m also incredibly honest with myself about my body’s ability to take on new and I remember to rest. For some folks, building a nest, crawling into it, and finding ways to heal their mind and body are all they are able to do… that’s enough.
A life well lived often does not look anything like social media tries to tell us it should look. It’s often quiet moments with your children - laughing and dancing in the kitchen. It’s those in between minutes while driving them to school or practice where we touch base and share space for a moment. It’s the naked hugs and quiet words between lovers during pillow talk. It’s the slowing at work to listen to our colleagues well and learn new things. It’s the TBR pile of books - balancing life long learning of soul-deep things from voices we’ve not encountered before.
What Point Am I Trying to Make?
Be gentle with yourself. Be gentle with your people. Be gentle with strangers. Many are feeling this heaviness and I imagine it’s not going to magically go away with a few goals, a new mindset, and a new year. Folks are hurting and frightened. It’s more than elections and global violence. It’s a deep fatigue of spirit.
In my past, I would have prayed it all away to a god who I believed cared for my worries. In my present, I hold my worries with reverence and then release them into the unknown. There is no script of right words and right faith - only wonder. I keep space with myself and hold less fear of spirit now - than I ever held as a woman with right faith and right belief. Perhaps because now I can own my worry and fear without pawning it off on another being. Fear is mine to hold and release as I see fit. I’m learning daily how to save myself. I’m taking my own rod and staff as comfort.
My goal today and this week and next week and the month ahead…
During the in-between, I hold 2024’s undone things with the tension of 2025’s unknown things and I am quiet and morbid and only slightly afraid.
J.