The Waiting Walk

Some pivotal or traumatic events become a blur in our memories, or we even end up with gaps and holes in our memories surrounding that event.  Other times that pivotal or traumatic event is seared into our memories in explicit detail.  Time slows down, details typically overlooked are now glaring and bold. 

For me, December 18, 2021 held one of those pivotal events, and it was the kind that seared itself into my memory in explicit detail.  The way my hands shook.  The knot in my stomach that threatened to expel anything I ingested.  My dry mouth making chewing and swallowing next to impossible.  My racing mind, shifting everything I thought I knew about myself, my marriage, my family, into something entirely new and different over the course of just a few moments and hours.  Planning, scrambling, making decisions that I had never seriously considered before and yet I knew would impact not only my future, but the futures of my children, and perhaps our eternal destinies as well. 

That year Christmas felt different.  I spent it with my kids and my parents on their farm. My head was so full of “what next???” that enjoying it was not a priority. There was a peace, but the anxiety and adrenaline were also very present.  

Christmas 2022 I returned to the farm with my kids for Christmas.  I was intentional about retracing my steps.  Less focus on the reliving and more focus on the reflecting, but some of both was done. Since I was in a mostly healthy mental state and all the major lose ends had been tied up (divorce final, property split/sold, new home bought and moved into, etc.), I assumed it would be a purely relaxing break.  

I was wrong.  I felt very anxious the entire time. And it surprised and even frustrated me. I now see that it makes sense. My body was remembering the stress and anxiety of that time, one year previous. The Body Keeps the Score, as they say. (It’s also a book on my to-read list, but reading intellectual books is something that even now I have very limited ability to handle, so someday after I read it I’m sure things will make even more sense!) I enjoyed that break but it wasn’t restful…

Christmas 2023 we enjoyed the farm again.  And I had very few expectations as to what I would feel.  I was pleased that that year I felt more relaxed than anything else.  Lots of reflection still – but that seems to be my entire life now.  Though it’s healthy and honestly I am enjoying learning about me and discovering what makes me tick these days.  

But this brings me to today, December 18, 2024.  Three years ago today my whole world shifted.  So what am I feeling? 

Honestly, if it didn’t pop up on my calendar, I might not have noticed the date this year.  This year my body is not sending me strong reminders of how it felt three years ago. This year, more than any other in my life, I am loving and embracing the full holiday spirit of December. This year anxiety has kept its distance. This year I truly look forward to resting and relaxing. And I do believe I owe my peace this year to the fact that I have faced this event and the anniversary of it each year head-on. That I have embraced ALL the feelings that it brings. I have allowed the fear and the dread and the sadness and the grief to all have a home. A place. A voice. And this year, they just don’t have that much to say. It’s all been said before, and now they’re distant watchers as my life moves forward. I do believe that had all those emotions not been given their time to speak loud and clear, that they’d still be clamoring now.

Lean into the grief.

Let dread have its say.

Sit with sadness.

It may be hard in the moment, but the payoff is worth it.

It’s possible that there are some emotions that just haven’t resurfaced yet this year. And that’s OK – I will always allow space for them.

For now, though, I sit with joy. With peace. With contentment. We look at how far we’ve come and smile. I sit with anticipation and excitement and we dream of adventures yet to be discovered. The future is a present yet unopened, and I feel as giddy as a four-year-old on Christmas morning, dreaming of all the possibilities that could lie inside.

I snapped another late-night picture, but it just didn’t have the same feel that the last three had. So I went ahead and switched it up. It seems fitting.

Year three is different from those before, and that is OK.

Actually, it’s a really good thing!

Happy Freedom Day to me.