You know that life is over, right?

And other things my therapist says to me. Plus books and my new internet crush.

Happy holidays from the beach.

Hello Midlifers,

Well, so far . . . so good.

The holiday season has historically tripped me up but this year, I’m feeling pretty emotionally stable as we hurdle toward Christmas Day next week. Usually by now I’ve had at least one internal meltdown. One long night of lying in the dark, hours before dawn, and mentally playing through my entire life (and usually just the low notes). Feeling my heart slowly travel up into my throat as I bemoan the course my life had taken. How it didn’t hew to the script I had worked so hard to write and stick to — and how my fellow actors just couldn’t follow their own lines. How they kept deviating from the parts I had created for them.

Maybe I’m learning to let things go a little more? Not try so hard to control the narrative and just accept things the way that they are? I don’t know.

During a recent online session with my therapist (who’s back from a year-long hiatus to kick my emotional butt into gear), I told her that even though I’ve moved 30 minutes away from where I’d lived for 30 years, I keep driving back up there to, like, get my nails done or buy salads.

“I just don’t know where to go to do those things where I am now,” I told her. “I just keep going back to what I know.”

She leaned her face a little closer to the computer screen and said, “You know that life is over now, right?”

And I was like, “Wow.”

I think she was being a little metaphorical there, using the salads and manicures to represent my old life when I was married and home with four kids. And then after the divorce when I was a “stay-at-home-computer-mom,” as my youngest son once called me when I had four kids still at home and a frantic work-from-home(ish) journalism job. Which segued into less and less kids home and lots of freelancing gigs. And then a pandemic and eventually, this new life in a new town with a full-fledged professional career living most days with just my dog at home.

My manager and I were making coffees in the office kitchen a while ago and somehow, started talking about Costco. I told her how back in the day with four kids at home, I’d buy everything in bulk — from milk to kitty litter. “I had so much stuff,” I told her, peeling plastic coverings off those tiny half and halfs to dump in my coffee cup.

“You’ve lived a lot of lives,” she said shaking her head, and I was like, “You don’t even know.”

Christmas used to look one way for the longest time when the kids were young and I was still married. And I still don’t think I’ve accepted that it’s not like that any more. It still sometimes makes me angry that I no longer have that life.

And then for a number of years, I became estranged from my own family. And that made me really angry, too. Not to mention, super sad.

Aside from all the yucky feelings, those circumstances have resulted in me spending Christmas by myself after the kids leave to be with their dad and his family. And I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve lied in bed and turned that hot piece of coal over in my head. All the stories that I’ve spun about other people and this tragic turn of events.

In other words: feeling super sorry for myself leading up to Christmas Day. Early on, I’d create a really sad holiday diorama by sitting on my couch watching TV and drinking too much wine after I stoically waved good bye to the children.

Another year, I decided I’d take myself to the movies — a lifelong fantasy to sit in a darkened theater and watch whatever blockbuster was being released that day instead of being perched on an ottoman in a hot, cramped room balancing a plate of turkey and stuffing on my lap. Instead, I walked into the theater lobby and immediately regretted not wearing a disguise, lest someone I knew was also at the AMC Monmouth Mall on Christmas Day. Even as I slid into my chair in the dark theater and started shoveling popcorn into my mouth, I worried that my fellow moviegoers were all looking at me and feeling sorry for me. Sad and alone on Christmas Day.

Last year, I drove down to Wilmington, DE after the kids left to spend Christmas night sitting next to my dad who’d landed in the ICU a few days earlier. While that kept me busy and gave me purpose, that was really sad in another way.

But this year, my therapist is having none of it. I’ve been meeting with her pretty regularly since November so I could circumvent any true internal drama, and most recently she’s tasked me to come up with a list of options for how I might spend those approximately five hours alone on Christmas.

Of course, there’s always the movies and tbh I did just check Fandango to see what’s playing that day and saw that I could go see the new Color Purple movie musical. I could be into that. I could go volunteer somewhere and stop thinking about myself. That’s certainly an option (and would probably provide lots of good content to share here). And of course, I could always go to a 12-step recovery meeting. But that always seemed kinda depressing.

Or, I could just tell myself a new story about where I find myself in life. The truth is, that by the time the kids all take off for their aunt’s house this year, we will have been stuffed together in this tiny beach rental for about three days leading up to Christmas. It’s going to be me and my dog, the four kids (plus my daughter’s dog) all crammed into three TINY bedrooms and sharing one bathroom (which is really gross after having the luxury of spreading everybody’s pooping out over 2.5 baths). By the time they walk out the door, I will in all likelihood be ready to be alone to decompress from all those personalities bottled up in one small house like a mad scientist’s beaker roiling and letting off a plume of smoke into the air.

I can’t speak for them (but I’m speaking for them), but the four of them are stuck in the past as well. I still get a lot of, “Thanks for being divorced,” comments. And they usually return from their own Christmas dinner experience filled with emotional angst about something. There have been words. There has been crying. There have been people who have drank way more than they ought to have. Doors have slammed.

Why can’t we all accept: That former life is over? Why can’t that be framed as a good thing?

Three teenagers on Christmas 2012 (post divorce). Joy.

Why then, can’t my story be this: Christmas morning remains my favorite hour or two of the year. We are gift people. It’s our love language. And nothing thrills me more than watching the kids give each other really thoughtful presents. Even though I’m a greedy little monster, I often forget I’m even getting anything because I just love watching all of their faces. The person opening the present but also, the one who took the time to really think about what would bring them joy.

We may sometimes be prickly to each other, but the gift giving lets us show the love that sometimes our hard outer shells won’t let peek through.

And they kids have done the same for me. Last year, my 20yo commissioned an artistic friend to illustrate a photo of us together. It’s one that was taken on a trip to San Francisco maybe 10 years earlier standing in front of a big Buddha statue in a Japanese tea garden (he was heavily into all-things anime at that time). In the picture, he’s staring at the camera with a hand tucked into his sweatshirt pocket while I’m leaning down, coffee cup in hand, to kiss the top of his head. Guys, I cried. I didn’t even know my youngest kid even knew I was alive, much less remembered a picture from so long ago of us together.

This illustration now hangs over my desk and it might be one of my most treasured possessions.

The original shot of us in San Francisco on spring break, 2013.

So, maybe I’ll go to the movies after the kids leave. Because honestly, I truly love going to the movies. Last week, I really did go see Godzilla by myself, and if I should even have worried about someone seeing me alone in the movie theater, that should have been the time to do so.

Or maybe I’ll watch the door shut behind the kids and sink back into the good old Ektorp couch for a while and enjoy the silence. I might even ignore all the shoes that have piled up by the front door in the days leading up to Christmas (none of them my own). And I’ll look past all the dog hair that’s collected all over every available surface in the house. Maybe I’ll put leashes on the two Goldendoodles still left at home and walk us all up to the boardwalk, where we can sit on one of the turquoise painted benches and look out at the ocean — something I’d never have been able to do in that old house. In that old life.

The boys last Christmas.

We can sit and watch the seagulls swoop low along the water. Maybe the ocean will be quiet as the sun starts to sink in the sky. The waves gently unrolling on the sand. And I’ll think about all the gifts I have. My kids. This life. All the possibilities that still lay ahead. And then we’ll head home, walking the quiet sidewalks in this sleepy beach town. Past the twinkling lights from garlands wrapped around all the porches as we head home. We’ll see the sky before us to the west streaked in soft colors. Gentle reminders. You are good. You are more than good. It’s a pretty good story.

sunday shares: read + watch + cook + buy

Memoirs, galore. Finished listening to Amy Bloom’s quick, devastating and beautiful book, In Love, about her beloved husband’s assisted suicide following an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. I had heard a condensed version of her story one night by accident when I had Alexa play NPR while I got ready for bed and ended lying on my bed listening and crying to her story told on This American Life.

More holiday cheer. The memoir I am reading is also kinda grim but beautiful — Suleika Jaouad’s Between Two Kingdoms about her leukemia diagnosis at 23, treatment and how that shifted her outlook on life. I picked it up at bookstore before a flight home from Raleigh, NC last weekend and quickly read 100 pages (which helped keep my mind off the horrendous weather and bumpy flight).

Want more reading recs? This week’s “Asking for a friend” was a forum for this Midlifer community to share what they’ve read and can’t stop thinking about in 2023. You can add to the conversation or get ideas for your own TBR (to be read) list here. Inspired, I started listening to North Woods yesterday (so far, LOVE) and ordered May Sarton’s The House by the Sea, because I am a true sucker for all mid-life-women-finding-themselves-in-Maine memoirs.

Incentivizing showering. Guys, I hate to shower. It’s like I was a cat in a former life. Want to know what helps take the edge off? Washing my towels in this super yummy smelling detergent. Yes, it’s expensive and I only use it on towels and sheets and you don’t need a lot. I don’t know, it’s one of life’s small joys.

What am I really obsessed with this week? This Substack. And her website. How did I not know about Joanna until now? She restacked something I’d shared and I was like, “Who is this woman?” and dove into the internet to find out. I love everything. All the recommendations. The gift guides. Her podcast episode with her sister (who was the wife of the When Breath Becomes Air author) chatting about dating. Well, I’m hooked and hope you all don’t leave me to be with her. Just saying.

Happy Sunday and I’ll see you next week. xoAmy