Roll with the (gut) punches

So, we survived the first round of "big" holidays. Meaning Thanksgiving and Christmas in our world. Yes, each alone is a bit of a whopper, but they, especially Christmas, have always been pretty big in my family.

My parents (and funnily enough, also my in-laws anniversary... decently helpful for me who is absolutely awful at remembering dates) falls on November 27, which doesn't always fall on the holiday, but it's hard not to associate the two. And then there's Christmas. We had a number of traditions and wonderful memories of course, but December 25th isn't just Christmas. It's my mom and dad's birthday.

In a number of articles I've read they mention how holidays/birthdays/anniversaries can be especially hard, to which I couldn't help but laugh at simply because why space them out when you can just get the double/triple/whatever whammy. One could say it's being efficient: grief edition.

I had prepared. Or as much as one can. On the day I found out my mom had died one of the things I explicitly remember turning me to complete hysterics was realizing I'd never get another holiday season with the family I had grown up being able to celebrate with for years. But the actual holidays themselves weren't as bad as I'd expected. We spent Thanksgiving in Oklahoma, and my dad came and spent a week with us for Christmas. Granted, there were other distractions surrounding Christmas that pulled focus from where I expected it to be (I'll cover that another time), but having him here and being able to explore the city and eat our fill of delicious seafood was a huge help in making it through.

While it wasn't nearly the experience I had braced myself for, it wasn't without highly emotional incident.
You'd think I'd have learned by now it's not the times we expect or plan for that hit hard. Nope. It can be anywhere, like waiting in line at the Dollar Tree, browsing in Target, or driving down a road in Oklahoma.

It started out as a beautiful day. Truly. The weather was amazing. Despite having checked the weather report multiple times before hitting the road, I still managed to underestimate how warm the mid-west can be in November, and hadn't packed quite the right options. And yes, I realize I spent the majority of my life in that part of the country, yet I still was unprepared. Apparently I've turned New Englander fairly quickly.

Because of the wonderful weather, we decided to check out this fantastic new outdoor area being built in Tulsa called The Gathering Place. An absolutely fantastic space to roam about (but remember the sunscreen!) with plenty of walking paths, lovely trees, and a part called Swing Hill. I mean, c'mon, doesn't that sound fantastic? On our way, we passed by another area along the river that had undergone a huge renovation. Beautiful walking paths, shelters, and seating areas scattered along the way, just waiting to welcome you to take part in a lovely day spent out doors.

While driving along, I had the strange tingle I had been here before. Now, we've visited Oklahoma a number of times over the years, so I was certain I had been at least in the vicinity at some point during one of those visits and shouldn't be surprised it felt familiar, but then it struck. The realization of why this specifically felt familiar. Suddenly my stomach sunk, my throat tightened, and I did all I could to just hold back the quickly building emotions.

To be clear, throughout this entire time I've been working very hard at allowing myself to "feel the feels" because not doing so seems to be the thing that hinders recovering from the deeper parts of grief. But sometimes you just don't want to give in. Sometimes you just want to quietly acknowledge, then move on.

And I tried. My god, did I try. I really just wanted to keep the day the way the rest of the trip had been up to this point- momentarily being hit by a pang, then moving forward. But today was different. This moment was different.

Earlier that day I found out an amazing friend of mine had passed away, well before his time. That loss, on top of all the others from the year, and then passing that place at that moment apparently ended up being my breaking point.

While we were driving and being updated by my mother in law about all the work that had been done along the river walk I grasped my husbands hand and started taking deep breaths, attempting to keep the tears at bay for just a little longer.

The reason why I knew this place; it was where he and I had come to walk during a previous visit. The visit that once we landed at the Tulsa airport I immediately got in a rental car and drove up to Kansas City to see my mom who had been admitted to the hospital to help with her sever depression and anxiety. And one of the last times I saw her in person.

Traffic was a little tricky as since it was an unseasonably warm day after a holiday everyone had decided it was a good idea to check out the new space. Tensions seemed heightened by everyone in the car, or maybe it just felt that way, but either way, once we parked I could not get out of that car fast enough.

We exited the car and I grabbed Josef, very similarly to that Wednesday morning when my dad called to tell me, I just went into hysterics. His poor parents were left in the dark about what was happening. Thankfully he ushered them along and said we'd catch up later.

I was ready for almost any other thing to "trigger" these feelings. I was ready to feel sad, or lost, or any other number of feelings on Thanksgiving itself. When we played Scrabble I had a bit of a lump in my throat. When I called my dad, who spent the holiday with friends in Kansas, I was sad because I missed him, but felt immense relief that he found a way to celebrate the day that worked best for him. When we were driving I felt a bit of de ja vu from when we packed up and drove through two Nor' Easters earlier in the year to get back to Kansas City.

But this. This came out of abso-fucking-lutely nowhere.

We're nearing the year mark (which, btw, how did a year already go by? A WHOLE YEAR?), and while I'm preparing myself for that, I'm also trying to take this experience as a not so friendly reminder that this whole grief thing doesn't play fair. It doesn't have rules it abides by. And for someone like me, who really, really, enjoys playing by the rules, well, it's teaching me to roll with the (gut) punches a bit more.