I Can't Say Happy New Year

I have never been so glad to toss out an old calendar, to move on to a new year.

I'm under no illusions that changing the date on the calendar will suddenly make my life easier or my grief dissipate, but putting 2013 behind me is still a relief.

Although I could still cling to the magic of Christmas to carry me through that holiday, I don't think my new year's greetings will hold a lot enthusiasm, despite my relief in seeing the year arrive. "Happy New Year," no matter how many times I may say it, still feels false on my tongue. Happiness is a ray of sunshine that occasionally penetrates the gloom of a gray winter sky, and it's as welcome as those bursts of brilliance but often as fleeting.

Stumbling onto a blog about being depressed and facing the New Year, I found three recommendations: don't dwell on the bad/failures of past year; don't look at the new year as another dark mountain to climb; and don't go all crazy with expectations for a somehow terrific new year. I'm doing my best to avoid those three landmines although forgetting the "bad" of 2013 is impossible

At the same time, January, that long, cold, dark month, seems like the perfect time to grieve. Seriously, I've always hated January and for that matter February as well and tend to battle a bout of seasonal depression each year any way. My emotions will be in tune with the season for a change, but while that may make it easier to grieve, it may also mean I have to fight harder to avoid serious depression. Arming myself with that knowledge up front may help, as will the short few weeks that I've spent building a support network. I know who I can call, even if I've not done so yet.

So while I dread the coming month, I always do. I hate the long, cold, dark nights, the days where the weather cannot commit to sunshine or snow, the frozen water in the dog's pans, the chilly rain and omnipresent mud, the bundling and huddling against the cold. Perhaps I'll be able to focus on my total disdain for the weather outside, instead of the same conditions that often seem to take over my emotions as well. Perhaps by knowing that the winter will pass, I'll be able to mark off the days internally as well and heal, even if the process is a slow as the almost imperceptible lengthening of the days

Putting December and the first Christmas without Ethan away in my memory box is a step toward survival. Beginning a new year still dragging a gray blanket of grief and knowing that I face the a long series of looming "firsts without Ethan" is still preferable to being mired in the holidays and the month of his death.

Of course, when I take the time to look at it that way, I know the year to come will be filled with emotional traps hiding in my path like quicksand just waiting for an unwary step to pull me under.

Holidays, although the big one we celebrated as a family is behind me for a year now, will be minefields. Most were days he didn't seem to care about any way, be they Valentine's Day, Easter, or even Mother's Day. But April 14 will still be his birthday and my mother's and last year we were all together, clean and sober, and it will never be that way again. Even if we all avoid mention of the day, if there's no celebration for my mom, that reality will still bear down on me like a tornado in the spring.

But I have months to prepare for that, to somehow find a storm cellar that will protect me from what I know is coming. And being forewarned by every grieving parent I know, perhaps I can make plans to be far away and distracted on that day.

Realistically, though, I know it is something I'll have to get through, even if it is a day or two late and no matter where I try to hide. Ethan won't be turning 24 this year. He's trapped in youth, free from the aches and pains of aging in a body that should have been better cared for, spared the painful goodbyes of watching family and friends slip away, released from his addiction and our constant pleas. Like a prehistoric dragonfly preserved in amber, he'll live on in my mind a smiling, blue eyed young man of 23, even while his sister ages and I tick off the years on my calendar.

I dread his birthday and all the other days when I'll randomly think of him and miss him, but I know that the only thing that will ease this pain is time and learning to live with the loss.

Welcoming the new year is a world wide marker of time passing, of things changing, of moving ahead even I feel like it is with heavy feet still caked in the red clay of a grave in a mountain hillside.

I want to move ahead. I want 2014 to be a little better. I want time to heal.

I Cry Every Day

I cry every day.

People ask me how I'm doing, careful about the question as if I were fatally ill, not someone still struggling with death. They know an honest answer won't be good, but they ask because they care although they may mentally cringe at what I may say, or at even asking the question. It's not just me who doesn't know how I'm supposed to act, it's all the world around me that doesn't know how to treat me.

I know at some level that it would be easier in so many ways to just quit. To wear the same clothes day after day, to sleep on the sofa with the TV muttering its distractions, to totally forgo life and just allow the grief to consume me. But while the grief occasionally swallows me whole for long minutes of time, I can't do that. Even though the addiction often wouldn't let Ethan think of anything except himself and getting high, I know the boy/man that I loved and who loved me would not want me to do that.

So I try to go on, not as though nothing had changed, but as though I were OK, because most of the time I am.

But I cry every day. Not just once, but repeatedly in moments when I find myself with nothing else that needs to be done, or when I sit quietly for too long and my mind begins to pull up fragments of memories, like a squirrel digging for acorns in the leaves.

There's a big hole in my heart, but you cannot see it and a doctor would probably never miss it unless he asked the right question. Then my heart would stutter along as it seems to do periodically throughout the day, a pulse that has nothing to do with the pace of my body, but with the faltering of the breath in my chest, the sudden streaming of tears down my face.

My clothes still seem to fit, although I think I've eaten three good meals in the last week and a half. I eat when I need to fix a food for someone else, or when someone else prepares food, because although I'm hungry, there is nothing that I want. Food is a wonderful idea, but one I only manage to embrace about once a day. My diet is mostly coffee. I need lots of coffee to wake me up in the morning, when daylight is a long way off but my eyes are open and so I must begin my day. Then more coffee after lunch to keep me awake with the girls, to be sure that I don't nap and sacrifice sleeping at night to the exhaustion that sometimes threatens me at 2 p.m. I usually manage to eat a little dinner, when my husband is home and the girls are ready to eat as well -- their appetites unimpacted by the grief that fills me. After the girls leave, I begin chasing sleep with the same zeal that I use all day to avoid it. Alcohol helps. A glass or two of wine and my eyelids are heavy and I can turn off the television and escape my reality for a few hours.

I try to convince myself that I need to exercise, to drink the quarts of water that I used to consume every day, and that to get moving and embrace old routines will make me feel better. But those things just don't seem important right now. I'm not going to feel good, so why bother? The disrupted schedule of the back to back holidays means I have to be self motivated, and right now I'm just not.

But aside from the liquid diet and my general apathy toward a lot of things, I think I'm doing OK. I'm feeding dogs and chickens and the cat and rabbit and gathering eggs. When the girls are here and going strong, I'm pulled from the brink of whatever pit of gloom may be threatening me and carried by their energy. When the sun is warm and the wind doesn't blow too hard, I want to be outdoors and moving with the dogs(it just isn't the season for much of that).

Most of the time I can keep my grief simmering in a pot on the back burner, but there are moments when I'm alone that the pot boils over and for just a little while it's really messy. I'll be coasting along doing OK and some random thought of Ethan will pop into my head, quickly followed by the bone-shriveling reality that he's gone -- not just mad and not speaking, not just out of minutes on his cell phone, not just high and not in the mood to talk -- gone from my life for whatever remains of it.

When I sorted his video games one last time before donating them to the local homeless shelter, I touched his treasures and my heart broke. Then I felt something in the side pocket of the gym bag where they were stored and pulled out a toothbrush and half a tube of toothpaste and that pushed me over the edge. The little losses and reminders, the bits of him that will always be part of me are sometimes just too much.

In those moments, I understand the despair that sends mothers to emergency rooms or drives them to lock themselves away from the world. In those seconds, I grasp how people lose the will to go on and are beaten down by grief. In those minutes, I'm often huddled with dogs who are not always my own and who lick the tears from my face and press against me with warm bodies, sensing some pain they do not understand but seek to ease. In those times, once I'm able to breathe again and trying to pull my head above water, I turn to prayer or the words of the songs that echo in my head to comfort me.

My prayer is often an angry one filled with questions and pain. On Christmas morning, however, I managed to thank God not only for the gift of his Son but for the 23-year gift of my own. Because despite all the pain and the fact that I do not like how the story of Ethan's earthly life ended, he was a gift that I might not have been given and I have to remind myself of that sometimes. I'm struggling to find acceptance and it comes in brief moments of clarity that I cling to when the tears come back again.

Perhaps, with the passage of more time, this wound will be less tender and the tears won't come quite so often. I won't start my day with this self-imposed therapy session where I often rip the scab from whatever healing I've managed and poke at the weeping pain beneath. Or perhaps, the scab will gradually be replaced with tender flesh and a scar that I'll touch gently forever. But right now I know I'm going to cry and working my way through it in words seems to help me wade out of the pit when I fall in. It gives me something to cling to, to remember. It's a free therapy session where the prompt isn't a psychologist's questions, but a blank screen.

If you ask, "How are you?" The answer is that I think I'm doing as well as I could be. The fact that I hold it together doesn't mean it's not even more awful than I imagined, it just means I don't see any other option.

And although you will probably never see me do it, I cry every day.

A Blue Christmas? Something Needs to Change

The holiday season -- whatever you celebrate and regardless of why you celebrate, heck, even if you don't celebrate -- is tough.

There's no way around it and it's made worse by the fact that we tend to think we're the only ones having a hard time negotiating the terrain of life between Thanksgiving and Jan. 2.

I blame Norman Rockwell and television. Well, that and the fact that we universally lie to one another about how great our holidays are, or our memories from childhood when we didn't really know what was going on are so clouded that we think perfection existed then and it's just now that we are failures.

Wrong.

Dreaming of that greeting card Christmas where everyone gathers around the table, clean, sober and civil, for a holiday toast of eggnog, mulled cider or maybe hot chocolate, can drive us insane when we're actually dealing with the reality.

Reality for a vast number of us, including me, includes a big chunk of dysfunction. How we cope with it affects our ability to enjoy the holidays.

Right now, I'm not doing too good. Despite my intent to focus on my grandchildren, and the fact that I've put my holiday energies there, I'm still struggling to be filled with Christmas cheer. Although I promised myself I would never get caught up in that vision of a perfect holiday that I've seen so many people struggle with, I'm finding it difficult this year. Since my winter depression doesn't usually hit until after the tree comes down, I'm looking for ways to cope better.

So for me, and everyone else that is finding it tough, I've been looking for ideas to help. Some have helped me identify my unexpected blues and maybe they will help you as well. Using medical sources I've narrowed it down to a list of 10.

1) Don't lower your expectations too much. Expecting too little from the holiday as a way of avoiding disappointment can be as bad as expecting too much. Seriously, if you start trying to prepare yourself for a holiday without a family member, you can miss the joy of everyone else. If you just know that nothing will go right, even if it does, you may be so caught in your blue fog that you don't notice. I put this first because I think that's what's happened to me after Thanksgiving. Really, while I missed my son who chose not to come, it didn't keep me from enjoying the day, so I shouldn't let anticipation of a repeat put a damper on Christmas either.

2)Volunteer and do something for someone else. Oops. I've messed up here already. I ALWAYS help pack Christmas food boxes, but I'm so far out of the loop no one reminded me of the date and I missed it this year. In the last 20 or so years, I've only missed doing it once before and perhaps part of my blues comes from that absence. I may need to be looking for another opportunity.

3)Exercise. Doctors recommend that even if you don't feel like you have the time or energy, exercise will help beat back depression. I've been doing some of that, but I'm used to being outside everyday for about an hour of fresh air and walking. I cannot control the weather and the rain has kept me inside. I think that may be part of my problem identified right there. Instead of spending my mornings walking with dogs, I've been stuck inside waiting on stir crazy preschoolers -- hmm, could that be making me a little crazy, too?

4)Find positive ways to remember loved ones. This is the week I lost my Ma. I was sitting in a courtroom waiting on some boring legal decision when my mom called and I felt my phone vibrate. I slipped out to call her back and found out my most beloved grandparent had slipped quietly away less than two weeks before her most beloved holiday and the one we always spent with her. The ways I remember her are positive, but this week I'm exceptionally sad, especially since the weather was so much like this year as well. I'll celebrate her by fixing a ham, and her famous chocolate pies, and maybe some really good mashed potatoes just like she would have done, and by decorating because the little people who call me Ma like it.

5)Use a sun lamp to fight seasonal depression. I have one because I know I have a touch of seasonal depression caused by shorter days. Although it's a bit early in the season, the ongoing rain and gloom are probably contributing to that as well. Got to dig that darn thing out and sit and listen to Christmas carols.

6)Lean on your support system (family, friends, support group, or therapist, if you have one). I've been a slacker in that area as well. I haven't talked to my best friend about just not quite feeling up to Christmas this year. Instead I'm still aiming to be little Miss Christmas. Guess I'm going to have to come clean.

7)In contradiction to not expecting too much, have modest expectations. DO NOT EXPECT THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS! Too many of us (including my family sometimes) dream that somehow we will put aside the differences that keep us from being close the other 364 days of the year and have peace and harmony together at Christmas. Somehow the magic of the season will spread to our dysfunctional families and they will be perfect for that one day. In direct relation to that, don't expect to have the perfect gift for everyone, or that someone will buy the perfect gift for you if you don't tell them what it is. Not giving or getting that gift should not set the tone for the holiday, but I also know that is part of my problem. My adult son has asked for something outlandishly expensive that I know he would love. I had to flat out say no. That's in direct contrast to the mom idea of seeing a child's face light up when they open their gifts -- never mind his age.

8)Don't overindulge in food or holiday "spirits." Darn, I was really looking forward to spiking a really big glass of eggnog and overdosing on calories, sugar and alcohol all at once. Or maybe baking and devouring a few sheets of holiday cookies. I've got some great recipes and I have the perfect little people to help bake them. It would feel good at the time, but the guilt, carb crash and potential hangover wouldn't help my overall mood I know.

9)Forget the unimportant stuff. I know, I do not have to put every decoration on the tree. Yet it haunts me that they are still languishing in a closet. Let it go already. No, I also am not displaying every light and I'm deeming it a failure and blaming it on my lack of enthusiasm and anticipation of having to put it all away after the holiday. No one but me notices that I haven't found my wreath yet (I hope) or hung the icicle lights. Don't we all have things we do that we can probably do without sometimes? I've got to let it go.

10)Remember the reason for the season. OK, so this one didn't make the WebMD list, but really, for most of us taking a step back to think about why we celebrate Christmas instead of how can bring some serenity. It's not about getting together with family, gifts, food, parties, decorating or cooking -- nope, none of the things we get focused on and consumed by are really what matters. Christmas is the day set aside to observe a miracle, love come to life, the redemption of mankind. It's about unselfish love that we've all been given whether we accept it or not. If we remember Christmas and let that love fill us, all these other things don't matter nearly as much.

So let the true spirit of Christmas fill you. Let go of the things stressing you out and be good to yourself. Sounds easy, but I know it won't be quite that simple. Still, it gives us something to aim for and if we manage only partial success, we'll still feel better in the long run.