My Candle is Broken (and other Advent thoughts)

Friends,

It has been so very long since my last post.  Honestly, and not surprisingly, this past year has been quite awful, and I haven't felt like writing.  But as Christmas and the new year draw closer, I'm getting reflective and not at all in the mood to sugar-coat anything.  So here we go.

This is our Advent wreath this year.  Isn't it lame?  None of the candles are straight, and I have twice found the pink "joy" candle completely broken off and sadly laying on the table.  What a metaphor for 2020.  No matter how many times I fix the candles and rig them to stand upright, they manage to do this.  I quit trying to fix them.

I don't want to tell you about how things were so different for our family this year, because things have been different for literally everyone.  We all know that story.  I do want to tell you a bit about this last year of our life and my reflection on this Advent season.

Nora entered our world in September 2019, and so did postpartum depression.  Near the end of my pregnancy and at my postpartum checkups, my doctor was giving me the standard postpartum depression surveys.  I wasn’t completely failing them, but I wasn’t exactly acing them either.  Each subsequent appointment in her office brought another survey, another concerned look on her face, another huge lump in my throat.  I finally managed to croak out “I think I need help” at my final postpartum checkup, and a few weeks later, I found myself in therapy for the first time in my life.  I managed to have a few sessions in January and February of 2020, and though I was still not quite feeling like myself, I knew I was getting somewhere.

And then, just as I was finally able to re-integrate myself back into my own life, a global pandemic swept in and drove me back inward — literally and figuratively.  I couldn't see my therapist any more.  I was home with two small children.  I wasn't yet teaching classes again, and even if I was, all the studios were closed.  The progress I had made in meeting new friends in our new town completely stopped.  Travel was cancelled.  

For all of the letdowns of the past year, there were a few bright spots.  Thankfully -- THANKFULLY -- things at the church have been going as well as can be expected.  We haven't met in person since March, but TJ has been working harder than ever to get everything online and keep us all connected, and he's doing an amazing job.  He's been working from home more, so it's been interesting to get a behind-the-scenes look into his day.  With much of our social life on hold, we have been unflinchingly rigid about keeping our weekly date night, a tradition we started back in seminary when our budget was incredibly slim and we couldn't afford a babysitter and a dinner in a restaurant.  We feed the kids their own dinner and put them to bed early, then we take our time cooking a meal together (not necessarily a "fancy" meal, but an "upgraded" one), sharing a bottle of wine, and talking without interruption.  It's magical, and it has happened every Sunday night for most of the past few years.  Since our vacation required an airplane, we cancelled it in favor of a three-hour drive to Michigan, where we spent a few socially-distant days at the beach.  Thanks to a long summer and a long autumn, we have been able to hang out outside a lot.  Jason has been going to school in-person, and I have been teaching and choreographing again in-person -- all with masks and loads of hand sanitizer.

Needless to say, this past year has been a mental health roller-coaster.  Now here we are at what should be the happiest season of the year, and you guys, I just can't quite get there.  Most days, I'm the pink "joy" candle laying defeated on the table.  Yet, everywhere I look, the world is urging me -- and everyone else -- to get over it.  Things will get better soon.  Tis the season to be jolly.  Or -- my personal favorite -- "remember that Jesus is the reason for the season".  I have heard the story of Jesus a couple of times.  I KNOW.

This Advent, I have been reflecting on the dichotomy of these times.  How we can hold both the sacred joy and the sheer pain together, and it works.  How we need to allow others to do this as well and not diminish someone's lamenting with plastic positivity.  How I strive to bring my whole self into every situation, including the depression that seems to hang around and the cynicism about the state of the world.  I know many people around me are struggling with pain from this past year that none of us will ever understand, yet they are simply dressing it up in holiday cheer because it's Christmas.  That's why it has become absolutely necessary for me to name my struggles and freely admit that while I am just as excited as my 5 year old is about Christmas, I'm also severely lacking in Christmas joy.  It's possible, and okay, to feel both.  It's also important for me to say this as a clergy wife, someone who many people expect to be a beacon of happiness always.

When we first became Episcopalian, Advent was new to me.  Now it has become my favorite season of the church calendar.  As I am patiently waiting for Christmas, I have also been gently forced into a season of reflection.  And as this year comes to a close, I'll end it much like the candles in the saddest Advent wreath ever -- leaning, falling, and shining.