The darker side of the holiday season ❄️
The darker side of the holiday season ❄️
People are grieving and feeling lonely — the holidays can be a rough time for many.
Next week, I’ll be sending out my last issue for 2022 — we’ll wrap up some of the reader-faves & author-faves from the last 12 months. If you read and particularly resonated with an issue, please let me know? Directly reply to this email or drop a comment or use any of the anon links after the post!
This week’s issue is slightly different — it’s a bit more personal (human?) and less research-backed (academic?). I hope you’ll still find it worth reading. 💜
December’s usually a festive month, especially in the West. But, even when you take away the religious aspect, end-of-the-year celebrations and welcoming the new year are huge formative parts of the way we mark the passage of our lives.
Usually, people use the last month of the year to take a break, go back home, and spend time with their families. Whether they believe in the religious bits or not, most people are happy to partake in the festive cheer, and loads of cities around the world get brighter with pretty lights.
In all this, we often forget that it’s also one of the worst times in the whole year to be grieving or alone.
Last week, when deciding what to write about, I came across a tweet that told me it was National Grief Awareness Week (2-8 December) in the UK. That tweet made me realize it’s a great time to talk about loneliness and grief and how much it impacts us — especially during ‘happy times’.
Grief is invisible but ever-present
December’s when everyone’s best-of lists start coming out. The best books you read, the best trips you took, the best moments of your life this year.
But this is also when people tend to realize they’ve got to start a new year without their loved one. Or when you realize that another year’s gone by without them and that the years are going to keep coming.
“Never is the sense of isolation and otherness more acute than when my grief goes unacknowledged.”
Grief isn’t linear by any standards. Often, it creeps up on you whether you realize it or not, and there’s little you can do to control it. Time helps, but special days that showcase the mark of whoever you’ve lost can take you right back to the start of the grieving process.
The ball-in-a-box analogy is the best way I’ve seen grief accurately described, and it’s a thread I hold close to my heart and pull out whenever I need a reminder that it’s okay to grieve even if you feel like you’ve moved on:
What did you accomplish this year?
The loss of a loved one isn’t the only kind of grief people can feel at the end of the year.
This is the time of year people start thinking about new resolutions to make, new goals to work towards, and evaluations to make about what they’ve gotten up to over the past year. Companies around the world often hold their yearly performance reviews and appraisals during this time.
Sometimes, it can be jarring to realize that you may not have achieved whatever you set out to. Or, if layoffs have impacted you or someone you care about — it can be really daunting to find a way to face the holiday season with a smile.
The end of a year can make you feel like you’ve not done much at all this year. But I think it’s worth remembering that not every year has to be great or even good. Most of what people post on social media is an extremely curated look into their lives. People only post the highlights and a few well-chosen low points they’re comfortable sharing — but in reality, we’ve no idea what went on behind closed doors.
Despite the rational understanding that there’s no real reason to compare our lives with others, it certainly feels like the end of the year is the one time we can’t escape the humble-brag show.
And I fully understand the need for all of us to talk about our achievements and share them with the world. That’s fine, but wherever possible, if we can internalize that we’re all different humans with unique capabilities and on different life tracks — that would help.
Who are you spending time with during the holidays?
Along with grief and inadequacy, loneliness is another brutal thing that comes out during the holidays.
This might be different across the world, but as I grow older, I realize how lonely life can be. I can see exactly when and why people pivot to finding someone and choosing to start their families. It gives them blanket immunity (for a couple of decades at least) against loneliness.
I speak from my experience moving to a different country, somewhere I seek to make my new home but where I haven’t found a community yet. I come from a country that’s very community-focused with a collectivistic culture. So realizing that I’m away from friends when we all have holidays and that we could’ve spent time together is a different kind of hurt.
Plus, people tend to sit at home in the winter — it’s easier to find people to hang out with in the summer when the weather’s nice. When it’s nasty and miserable and cold, it’s easier to stay home (and for some, this means a lot more alone time than usual).
However, and not to toot the ‘others have it worse than me’ trumpet — people can feel extremely lonely during the holidays. Whether it’s because almost everyone ‘returns’ home or takes holidays to spend time with their family, people can suddenly lose their daily interactions and support systems for a few weeks. Often, it may feel like your coworkers, housemates, or friends in a new country/town are going back to their ‘real’ lives while you’re left to spend the holidays on your own.
According to recent surveys in America, in 2020, 1 in 10 Americans experienced extreme loneliness. Along with it being absolutely shit for the person experiencing it, loneliness can also have some horrid social effects (which we’ll discuss in a different issue). This feeling of loneliness has been exacerbated by the pandemic, which forced us all into isolation for months.
This is probably the first holiday season in the last two years that isn’t completely marred by covid — which means people are going to have to bear the full brunt of their sad feelings. Suddenly, it doesn’t feel like everyone’s in the sad, lonely boat like you — so it might be a rougher winter than usual.
“When you’re by yourself
And there’s no one else
You just have yourself
And you tell yourself
Just to hold on” — John Lennon, Hold On
Some words of comfort
It’s difficult to imagine what words on a screen could do to alleviate any feelings of grief, loneliness, or inadequacy you’re feeling. Personally, I try to find solace in music and media — Lonely by RM and Magic Shop by BTS are two songs I’d recommend.
If you’re reading this, the people around you who might be struggling might appreciate a check-in (and this applies even if they’re not struggling).
When I wanted to write this last week, I was grappling with feelings of grief for lost loved ones and family members. The grief hits afresh during the holiday season when I remember our now never-to-be-done-again traditions. This week, I’m dealing with a different kind of grief — a parasocial one. One of the members of BTS, Jin, has officially begun his military service. I’m sad to know that others will follow soon, and I’ll miss the sources of comfort I’ve had for so long.
It’s selfish, I know. People have bigger problems. But I can’t help the way I feel, and neither can you. Your feelings during the holidays can feel magnified in their pain, so I encourage you to help yourself feel better however you can (without harming yourself or others). Feel free to reply to this email if you need to vent or talk about something, and I'll do my best to respond or point you towards resources. Or you can drop a comment, and I know people will respond — if anything, this year has shown me there's more good in the world than we can see.
“While drinking a glass of hot tea
And looking up at the Milky Way
You’ll be alright, oh, this here is the Magic Shop.” — BTS, Magic Shop.
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Nia's Newsletter Rec!
Dispatches from Inner Space is the place where fiction and philosophy meet. If you have a thing for good storytelling but you also find yourself compulsively reading stuff about how to be a better human…this is what you’re looking for.
This is one issue that I found particularly insightful:
Stuff to check out this week! ✨
If you don't have time for anything else, check this out. This is a mood boost of the highest order.
Who's your #1 artist, and what's your #1 song of the year? Here's my Spotify Wrapped (please share yours in the comments, I'm nosy). This is my Duolingo wrapup if you’re interested.
The end of the year is a great time to sharpen your saw. To put it another way, take your PTO/don't feel guilty about taking a break!
I'll be honest. For the longest time, I had no idea what a feed or an RSS feed was. Finding this article was like a lifesaver.
If you're in the US, you can dial Peptoc at 707-998-8410 to get advice from lovely little humans (kindergartners). They'll give you pep talks, words of motivation & encouragement, and so much more. It's also available in Spanish!
My friend Ellen talking about the last time she ate the pasta sauce made by her late mom moved me.
Some funny TV shows in the comments here you can watch for some serotonin!
Sharing some encouraging word from Jin from BTS:
His delivery could use work, but 10/10 otherwise, hehe. 🎁
I’ll see you next week — maybe not at the same time, but definitely the same place.
This post comes at the right time. Hope you are feeling better in health btw
Thank you, Nia, for addressing such a pivotal topic. Loneliness does seem to feel worse during the holiday season--or, rather, it does to me.