If you found yourself here and you’re not a subscriber— come join the club!
It seems so wildly serendipitous that on the cusp of the winter solstice, where we turn the year, that I had one of the most profound revelations, and acceptances, of my life.
Thirty-Six years is a long time to get to know yourself. I don’t pretend to be even halfway on that journey, but another milestone was gained, painfully, as I worked through some deep feelings that are connected irrevocably to this particular time of year.
It started an ordinary winter’s day: a slow morning, coffee and cuddles in bed with my cat, before I arose and donned my winter walking attire, heading out to see what the morning would bring.
The first crisp, cool breath revives me from my SAD-state; my mood instantly buoyed by the low sun, streaking gold lines through the inky silhouettes of the old oaks, as I walk under them towards the village. My mind swirls with questions, musings, about my life, my childhood and adulthood, and where they are connected still. Those points are tender at the best of times, more so with the probing I’ve been doing of late, in preparation for memoir writing.
As always, there’s something about the little village: where I walk between ancient but sturdy stone cottages, turning left at the war memorial, past the old Kirk, my eyes grazing the distant hills fringed with woodland. A deep, aching nostalgia tugs hard at my gut, and memories wash over me. Of family walks in our local country park, and of evenings at the Christingle service where I’d return home with a tangerine wrapped in foil, jewelled candies on cocktail sticks stuck through the dimpled skin.
Much of my early childhood had a feeling of total and utter security, and stability. Christmas was a time where our house was full of light and warmth—a hotch-potch of colourful lights and ornaments adorning our tree, little white snowmen candles, which smelled divinely smoky when you blew them out. Cards lined the door frames, and the kitchen cupboards were stocked with goodies. It was relaxed, we didn’t have a big social life: perfect for a little girl obsessed with nature, stargazing and reading. It was a precious time where I could allow myself to be utterly absorbed by whatever pulled me in—a way of life I’ve worked hard to cultivate over the last few years, never really understanding why. Now that I know I’m autistic, it makes sense that I should need to carve out this space for interest and passion, and build a working life around it.
I turn to walk down the road to my favourite field, which overlooks the steely water. It’s been dressed in finery these last few days, burnished with silvered frost, so thick after three days that the long blades of grass are encrusted with diamonds. I’ve been taking slow walks, photographing the shapes, the way they sparkle in the sun. Today, the ice has melted, the diamonds along with it. I can see right out to the top of the hill in the country estate today—it’s been shrouded in mist during the frost, and it feels like some obscurity has been cleared in my mind along with it.
I’ve been trying to figure out why I love Christmas so much. Is that a strange thing to investigate about yourself? We who celebrate it tend to love Christmas (despite its stresses). But for me, with just five days to go, the anticipation is exhausting me. I have to make a controlled effort every year to relax, to keep my focus on my work, when all I want to do is stop everything and just embrace the season. To stop, and rest, recuperate in this deepest of winter. It’s a powerful pull. I am obsessed, to a fault, with wrapping each person’s gifts in themed paper, with just the right message, bow and tag. I usually over-buy (can we all have extra budget just for gifting, please?) and I wish I could be there to see my friends open their gifts on Christmas Day (but we can’t be in more than one home at a time).
I get this from my mother. She’s a Serial Gifter. She didn’t have much growing up in a neglectful home with six siblings, so she made an enormous effort to give us what she never had. She gifts so people know that she loves them. I’ve had to re-calibrate my understanding of what a ‘normal’ amount of gifts is, not just for Christmas, but small thank-you’s, birthdays and weddings. To me, I never felt spoiled—it was always related to our passions, she’d even wrap our presents in ‘our’ colours, it was always so considered.
I guess I love Christmas so much, because it’s when I felt the most loved. Safe. And Seen. And my obsession with it now, it dons on me as the shimmering blue water appears when I crest the hill, is that I’m trying to capture what I lost, when we lost our family home unexpectedly. I’m still—fourteen years later—trying to piece us back together into that glowing, fairy-light draped image that I’ve distilled my family into. And it hits me, like the tide rushing out below me, that there’s nothing I can do to turn back the clock—or even capture a moment of it. I’m madly trying to bottle my fondest memories in old traditions from my family home: the annual new tree decoration, the twinkling ornaments and jars stuffed with string lights, watching The Bear and The Snowman every Christmas Eve (wilfully ignoring the ache in my gut when I do).
I walk heavily to the muddy bottom of the field, and I realise that no amount of candles will bring back into my home the light of my childhood, or chase away the shadows of it. It doesn’t matter how much joy I inject into my and my husband’s visit to put up my parents tree and decorations, how many festive songs I sing at the top of my lungs, how sparkly my jumper is; I can’t recreate what’s lost.
Nothing in my power will bring my disabled parents and my sister out for one more walk with me. It’s been my habitual role in my family to be the person orchestrating and organising us, knowing what’s going on with who at any given moment.
Troubled as life became—as hard as it was reckoning with the late-realised understanding that I was a young carer, these three people have been my anchor-points. They were how I navigated myself through the world: I know who I am in respect to them. But without them, I am immediately untethered and cast adrift.
A moment of pure panic seizes me: I will never again walk through the countryside on Christmas Day (or any day) with my family again. My lungs suck in a huge breath and my eyes burn for a second before the tears come.
I am a whole, separate person with my whole, separate life ahead of me.
The truth of it is, I need to be in control. I am a fixer. I’ve spent all the years since we traumatically lost our family home, trying to stick us back together, trying to fix their varying problems, be it health, housing or finance. I’ve been trying to prevent mental health crises whilst managing the impact on my own. I’ve taken on their problems, as if I can fix our broken home by ticking each one off one at a time. But I can’t.
And I don’t have to anymore.
My parents have lived just up the road for two years, nearly. My mum, who passed her love of nature and walks to me, has been out for a walk with me in this place we now both live in, twice in this time.
The guilt that’s stooped my shoulders for so long lifts off in the breeze, on the wing of a Bullfinch, coral breast flashing assurance as it tilts into the sun.
We have to give kindness to ourselves. This is no selfish thing. It’s a revelation. A necessity for survival. For thriving.
My breath is still ragged as I crest the hill on the other side of the field, the rolling grass and trees up ahead of me, black outlines against the bright sun. The vast sky expands as I stride towards the road again, feeling like the earth has completed a full revolution in this short space of time. Perhaps the Bullfinch felt it.
I skirt the edge of the field and clamber out onto the road, solidified by the connection of my feet to the path home.
I’m ready to meet the Earth’s tilting to the light once more, when I will spread my wings.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION… I’d love to hear your stories. Do you have a similar experience? Maybe you’re on the other side. I’d love to hear from all of you.
I can really relate to this, more than you know!
Our family home caught fire just months after my Mom left my Dad when I was in college. A year or so later, it had to be sold during their divorce. It was the only home we'd known and I felt like it was my responsability to try to somehow put my family back together. It took many years to realize it wasn't all on my shoulders.
I'm still learning to shoulder less but I think there's a certain kind of unavoidable grief that inhabits your body when you lose your home and your understanding of the family that it belongs to. Wishing you more lovely walks in the New Year. Thanks for being here and sharing your story!