As the holiday season came to a close and the quietness of winter (such as it is in sunny San Diego) settled around me, I opened my current read, Commonwealth by Ann Patchett, to chapter two. It was the night of December 30th and Dennis was asleep beside me. Our later schedule over Christmas break had me reading late at night.
The second chapter opened to a scene decades in the future from where chapter one left off. Suddenly the father was in his 80s and fighting cancer. I read a line where the nurse asked him, “You’re drinking your Boost?” and burst into tears. As I lay in bed, crying for all that my mom endured over 2023, the year that was rapidly coming to an end, it occurred to me that maybe I hadn’t processed all my emotions brought on by my mom’s long, arduous, and ultimately successful fight against cancer.
Trying to get a cancer patient to take in calories, such as those specially formulated in Boost, is a major part of caretaking and nursing someone through the aftershocks of chemotherapy. I knew that now, intimately. I didn’t know that a year ago. I could relate to that simple hope, “You’re drinking your Boost?” in a way I never imagined I would.
Since that night, I’ve been slowly peeling back the layers of protection I’d built around myself since last summer. I’m ridiculously good at repressing my feelings and this past summer my overwhelm pushed me to adopt new coping strategies to add to my repertoire of being “in my head” and keeping busy. As the holiday season unfolded, I generally felt joyful as we celebrated the birth of Christ, but I also felt disconnected from the moment. My feelings were hard to access and likewise my connection to my loved ones didn’t feel as deep and meaningful.
Through prayer and the self-reflection that New Years brings, I recognized that strategies like zoning out on social media, keeping extremely busy, and ending the day with a relaxing glass or wine (or two) had all contributed to a general numbing and distancing from my feelings. No wonder the thought of a Boost triggered all that unresolved emotion!
Around our kitchen table on New Year’s Eve, I asked my family what they felt marked our year. After a brief moment, Dennis replied, “Your mom’s cancer.” It brought tears to my eyes that he recognized and affirmed what we’d all experienced that year.
Just a couple weeks before we’d taken my mom out for her belated 70th birthday dinner and she shared her gratitude for our sacrifice as a family during her cancer treatment. In that moment, sitting at Larrupin in Trinidad (IYKYK), my emotions felt hard to access, like that season involved too much pain to bring into this joyful moment of birthday celebration.
Reflecting on that feeling of not feeling deeply, I came into January seeking to let go of control, stop using numbing strategies, and allow myself to feel my emotions again. If you’ve read this blog over the past 9 years, you’ll notice a recurring theme! This cycle of acceptance and letting go was also accompanied by some nights of insomnia, which is my special barometer for when repression and control has gone too far.
So, I may have more to blog about now that I’m allowing myself to feel my feelings again… I hope your New Year is also full of growth, grace, and goodness.