Expectations




Yesterday was Christmas. Probably everybody knew that. I have celebrated Christmas more or less the same way for the last 20 years. Dan and I would have Christmas with my family and Dan and I would have Christmas with his family.  I haven't missed a Christmas in 20 years. When we were in college we flew home. Sometimes we have celebrated on different days to accommodate everyone's schedules, one year there was a giant snow storm and we celebrated the next weekend. We have always found a way to make Christmas work with both our families. 

This year was no different, we celebrated with Dan's family in the afternoon and then we went to my family in the evening.  I've been to 20 of these. Dan has only been to 17. He has missed the last three Christmases because he was dead.  We miss him every day but we miss him at Christmas too. 

Baby Girl jumped on me at 5:21 AM. "come on mommy, get up, it's Christmas"  she didn't jump on daddy, he didn't roll over and kiss me and say something like "you heard the girl get up, it's Christmas"  We opened the presents under our tree and we honestly had a good time. Dan wasn't there. We cuddled on the couch and I read her the book of Daddy stories I had made her. She loved it but it wasn't the same as having him there. I thought of all these things, I missed him, but we also had a good time. Seeing as it was now 6:00 am we had ample time to snuggle on the couch and watch tv before heading off to grandmas. That was nice too.

We went to Grandma and Grandpas house (Dan's parents). Baby Girl played with her cousins, I talked to my inlaws and even managed to squeeze in a nap seeing as I woke up at 5:21 am.  I grabbed the quilt Dan's mom made out of his old t-shirts and snuggled up on the couch.  I have the kind of in-laws that don't mind if I take a nap in the middle of visiting them. In fact I think they wish I would do it more often.  They seem to be under the impression that I have a lot on my plate, that grieving for there wonderful son is hard on me, that raising our Baby Girl alone is a lot of work.  I don't know where they get crazy ideas like this but they seem to really like it when I rest and let them feed me. So I do it, you know just to please them.  Even with always always missing Dan it was a really nice afternoon at their house this Christmas.

We went to my sisters house for dinner. Cousins for Baby Girl, siblings for me. We played this ridiculous game where you put this thing on your mouth to stretch out your lips and then you try and say a sentence.  There's nothing better then laughing your head off at your family on Christmas. I missed Dan but we still had fun.

We came home and went immediately to sleep. I was not looking forward to the next day. Here is a little grief tip for you. You can totally get 'grief hangover' On any day really but especially holidays or big events. It basically works like this, you are so busy with the event, in this instance Christmas shenanigans, that you don't grieve, you shove it all it down, so then the next day it hits you like a bad hangover, You miss your person so much that it physically hurts, that you can't really function, your brain goes into a giant fog an you do things like put your keys in the freezer.  There's no remedy, some old wives tale about raw eggs isn't going to fix this, you just have to live through it. Like you did the last two Christmases.

O now it gets messy.

Today as I was thinking about christmas, I kept telling myself, 'we had a really good Christmas, I can't figure out why, it was just so nice and calm and relaxing, I missed Dan, I thought about him all day, I always do, but we had a really relaxing Christmas.' This doesn't make any sense to me the last two christmas besides being just plain awful were really tense. I'm gonna say something I don't really want to say now; we had a good Christmas, It was nice, we had a good time. Dan wasn't there and we still had a good time. My therapist is going to be so proud of me, this is like her goal with me.

Why though? Why did Christmas go so well this year.  I suppose the correct answer is time, it gets better after time. I really really really hate that answer. It's the easy way out. Time is not going to make me love Dan less. Time is not going to make it hurt less. Time is stupid. Time is linear and love is not.  What time does is give me time to figure out how to live without him. Which I also hate, but may be willing to consider it necessary evil.

Then it hit me, time affects ones expectations. and thats what it was.  For almost three years now I have been expecting Dan to walk through the door. I was there when he died, I went to his funeral. I fully expect him to just walk through the door at any given moment. Just like it was a big nightmare, or realy really bad joke. Just be done, Just walk through the door. Any given door. Just open it and say hey I'm here. I can still here exactly what his keys jingled like as he put them away. I know that sound and I expect to hear it.   I didn't hear it yesterday. Not hearing it has become more of the norm then hearing it has. 

Yesterday, Christmas day was the first day I realized that I wasn't expecting him to walk through the door, I knew he wasn't going to. I still wanted him to but I knew he wasn't going to. Read that sentence closely because it is different then this sentence; knowing that he can't and yet still expecting him to. one more time.

Crazy widow brain says "I know he can't walk through the door because he's dead, but I still expect him to walk through the door.

Rational brain says "I still want him to walk through the door, but I know he's not going to because he's dead."

That's the difference in thinking. Yesterday wasn't tense, because I wasn't expecting him to walk through the door. There was no tension, there was no expectation. I wasn't waiting for him to come home like I've been waiting for him for the last (almost) three years.  That thought, that revelation is another whole level of heartache and sadness and pain.

I can't wait to tell my therapist all about it.

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle

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