As I write this, it’s Christmas Day. Which isn’t really a huge deal around our house – we’re Jewish, and this year Hanukkah ended on December 14th. We’ve been out of holiday mode for a few weeks. And to be honest, this deployment featured holiday burnout like woah. They left just before Thanksgiving, so we didn’t have much time to really sort ourselves out before we went into holiday mode.

But before we even got into Thanksgiving, we celebrated our tenth anniversary. Apart.

So there’s two. Anniversary. Thanksgiving.

And then on December 4th was my birthday.

Three.

Hanukkah began on the evening of December 6th.

Four.

So when folks talk about holidays without their spouses, I can only groan in commiseration. Because good grief, do I ever know. And this year featured burnout like no other by the time we got to that last candle.

I think that, because we’re Jewish, we’re likely a bit more experienced at moving through the holidays without MarvMan home to help celebrate. We have a Hebrew calendar chock full of feasts and holidays, both major and minor, and other small celebrations and observances throughout the year. It’s almost impossible to even make it through a short underway without missing something.

Holidays are supposed to be these happy occasions, where we take a moment to sit down and count our blessings. But that’s really damn difficult when you’ve got an empty chair at the table. When your spouse isn’t able to attend shul with the family. When you’re cooking their favorite things, knowing they won’t get to enjoy them.

The emotions run the gamut. I try to focus on the good. Really, MarvMan not being home is the perfect excuse to get out of social occasions. Folks will suggest that you get out and be social during the holidays. I’m an ambivert, and the kind of social “on” that holidays require is particularly draining. I reserve that for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Pesach (Passover).

A lot of my hermit tendencies around the holidays center on the fact that my emotions are so unpredictable. I don’t like crying in front of people. I really, really don’t. I don’t like to be touched, I don’t like to be consoled, not until afterward, and I need to have specifically asked for it.

But holding that in results in anger. (I promise, no Star Wars jokes.) I will lash out. I will say things that I may or may not mean. I will hate the world because screw all you people that get your whole, complete families, and then complain about all your family dysfunction and having to see so and so. Don’t you know how much I would give to have my family whole and complete? How much I want to have both sides of our family together for just one holiday together, to host it?

And then I realize my family is about the same as most other families, and that when I actually get what I want, I’m sure I’d be exhausted and cranky at the end, too. I mean, it’s reality. We can curate this picture perfect social media image (guilty!) all we want. And in the end, it’s not what will really happen. There will be flopped recipes, fights, too much to drink, cranky children, all sorts of things…

It’s never what we envision.

Which is probably the most depressing part of a partner being gone for the holidays. You don’t even have your partner to drink with later and gripe about it all.

After the anger has faded, I’m way too empty to cry. You can really feel that hole, that void. And you kind of want to scream into that emptiness, to see if it echoes in there. Or stare into that void – wondering if it will stare back and you won’t feel so lonely.

But my hope for you, dear reader, dear sibling in this life, is that you will not let the anger, the sadness, the loneliness, cloud the holiday. Don’t let it steal whatever bits of joy come your way. Grab those bits of happiness and cling to them fiercely. Be open to the possibility of happiness in the midst of loneliness.

None of this, by the way, is intended to inspire pity, or to have people approach me later with the sympathetic hugs. Or messages asking if I’m okay.

And I know you’re there. I’ll talk when I want. If I even want to talk in the first place. I will ask for hugs, I will let you know what I need, when it need it. I’m okay, though, really. We’ve done this so much by now, I’m used to the feelings.

Does it hurt? Yeah, it hurts. It hurts like a sonuvabitch. But there are good moments, too. Moments that bring the light back, that make me feel at least a little bit whole again.

I will never forget the moment the switch flipped for me, this year, watching my two little girls – more like young ladies now – lighting their own hanukiyot (Hanukkah menorahs) entirely on their own. The way the candlelight made their eyes sparkle and shone on their faces, so changed over time and looking so much like their father, infusing the holiday with his spirit in his absence. How they giggled over presents and over the things that we had planned to do. How they were able to find their happiness in the simplest of things.

Taking a moment to meditate on the candlelight one evening, I realized that the Jewish way of thinking really applies to us that not. Our observances of these holidays, in the ways we celebrate, connect us through space and time to all our ancestors and the greater Jewish community celebrating at that same moment. All together, regardless of name or race or location, as one family.

So, too, do our observances of these holidays, our participation in the rituals and in the joys, connect us across the distance with MarvMan. And not just on Hanukkah, either, but on any and every holiday we celebrate.

It’s a connection, and I’ll remember to hold on to it as tight as I can when I close my eyes and say the Shabbat blessings tonight.

 

This work by Lin Clements is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.