One of our LOVE SCHOOL students made a special request for our next LOVE SCHOOL class- how to cope with the holidays when someone you love fails to live up to your expectations. She wrote, “How do you befriend your sad, hopeless, lonely parts during the holidays when your life isn’t a Hallmark Movie?”
Reading her letter, I flashed back to my mother sobbing when my father gave her a pregnant cow as a gift, when she was hoping for something sparkly that fit in a small velvet box. He thought he’d upped his game since giving her an oil can, but she wasn’t impressed. By the time I was eight years old, my father had figured out that it was in his best interest to give me his credit card and send me Christmas shopping for Mom. When she passed in 2017, and the family was doling out her jewelry, I realized that I’d picked out almost everything in her jewelry box.
My mother had other unfulfilled expectations around holiday time. I’ll never forget the year she’d bought matching hoodie footie pajamas for all “the grands” (grandkids). We were spending Christmas at our family’s farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia, where we hiked into the forest to select our Christmas tree, and Dad hauled it back on his tractor.
Mom wanted a photograph of all the grands wearing their matching PJs, but for the life of her, she could not get all those toddlers smiling at the same time. Just when one of them stopped arching and wailing, another one set off. After an hour of trying to get my baby to cooperate, I finally said, “Enough already!” and stomped off with my baby on my boob. Mom looked crestfallen.
Dashed expectations took a much darker turn on my daughter’s father’s side of the family. Every holiday, his mother-in-law had some fantasy ideal of how the holidays should go, but everyone walked on eggshells waiting for her borderline personality disorder to kick in and lead to a blow-up/ meltdown. The things that set her off were so small- and so shockingly distressing to her- that we finally quit trying to do holidays at his house.
This Thanksgiving, I had the worst Thanksgiving of my life. I was already grieving, since I wasn’t going to be with any of my family. My siblings all get together in Ohio, now that they all live in Columbus, which was never my home, but Jeff and I weren’t going to be joining them since we were on a tight moving deadline and had to get out of one house just after Thanksgiving, and our new lease had only started a few days earlier. My daughter’s Thanksgiving break was so short that it didn’t make logistical or financial sense for her to fly home from NYC. And since Jeff and I were mid-move, I didn’t even know where my turkey roasting pan was boxed, I wouldn’t have been capable of giving her a proper Thanksgiving anyway. My daughter went to a friend’s house, and Jeff and I would have done the same, only we don’t really know anyone in our new town, and the old friend I’ve often celebrated holidays with in Santa Cruz was on call at the hospital.
I’d told Jeff I wouldn’t be cooking for Thanksgiving since we hadn’t unpacked my kitchen yet from the storage boxes. Instead, I suggested we shake things up and go for a day pass at Harbin Hot Springs, eat pad Thai at Buddha Thai, and relax our sore muscles, taking a one-day break from moving. All he had to do was buy himself a day pass, because they changed the rules and I could no longer book his day pass on my membership. I’d handle the rest.
Thanksgiving morning with my empty nest arrived, and Jeff still had not booked a day pass. The new house was a chaotic mess and I was homesick and heartbroken. I felt outraged that he couldn’t be bothered to meet that one small expectation to enter his credit card into a website so I could go sit in warm water and nurse my visible and invisible wounds. He thought I was an unpleasable bitch who couldn’t be bothered to communicate my expectations for the day that he knew was going to be hard for me. I felt defensive because I’d been crystal clear about what would have made me happy days earlier.
A fight ensued, and my roadrunner part just wanted to bolt. I wound up sobbing in our one bathroom in the renovated barn we were moving into. Jeff felt helpless to make me stop crying, and when he made bids for connection to try to hug me, I pushed him away and froze up. It was a royal shit show. I thought about going to Harbin by myself, but I was afraid I’d get months of “poor me” stories from my partner about how I’d abandoned him on Thanksgiving so I could go bathe in mineral water with other men while he slaved away at home, unpacking boxes. It wasn’t worth the passive-aggressive punishment I imagined I would have to deal with in the aftermath, so we both stayed home unpacking, with a Cold War ensuing in the deadly silences.
I spent most of the day framing my daughter’s 5 year old watercolor paintings from her Waldorf school in twenty black and white frames to decorate her new room in the hay loft of the barn, as a small way of feeling close to her, when she was on a train to Stony Brook, NY to get well fed by her best friend’s nana. Towards the end of the day, when neither of us had eaten anything yet, I suggested we take the dog to the beach for sunset. I packed some snacks and drinks to enjoy around the fire pit, where the beach was beautiful, and the sunset was spectacular. Our nervous systems settled down enough to hold hands and chill the ice.
On the way home, we passed Dinucci’s, a new local haunt on Highway 1 that serves homestyle Italian family dinners. Jeff offered to buy me dinner there, but when he walked in and asked for a table, they laughed. They’d been booked for months. We stopped at another local restaurant, but they’d just closed after a community potluck we would have attended, had we known it was happening. We called a few more places, but nobody answered the phone, and every restaurant we tried to book online was booked. We went to bed hungry and cranky. I slept alone in my daughter’s new bedroom, surrounded by her art while missing her terribly.
The next day, things perked up. One of my best friends, who now lives nearly three hours away since our move, surprised me by calling me to say she was planning to be near me for a Friendsgiving party at an old barn in West Sonoma. She asked if Jeff and I wanted to join her, which we did. People brought fresh oysters, local wine, homemade kombucha, apple pies from the local Gravenstein apple trees, and Thanksgiving leftovers. It was medicine for our souls and nourishment for our hungry tummies. I wound up knowing about twenty of the hundred or so people there, and the whole thing ended with a bunch of kids putting on an adorable talent show. The baby who could barely sit up straight playing the drums was the highlight of my holiday. After feeling painfully displaced for Thanksgiving, I felt just a glimmer of being, once again, placed, embedded in community, land, and love.
Reflecting on this topic left me pondering expectations around the holidays. Which expectations are reasonable and which are just a set up for misery? I remember a Buddhist therapist telling me that all of our misery stems from our expectations, and if only we stop expecting anything, we’d all be perpetually delighted and surprised. I thought it was hogwash. How can we have healthy relationships if we’re not allowed to expect even the most basic pleasantries? Sure, maybe some expectations are a set up for disappointment. But is it unreasonable to expect that if I get cancer, my partner will come to the doctor with me or sit with me during chemo? If we have zero expectations, how can we ever feel safe, secure, and trusting?
By special request, this will be the topic of discussion, IFS practice, creative writing, and healing work during our next LOVE SCHOOL. If you or anyone you know is interested in joining us, you’re invited! LOVE SCHOOL is an ongoing community of practice for those of us healing from relational trauma, practicing IFS, learning relational skill-building, and supporting one another to have healthier partnerships, friendships, dating, parenting, and family life.
We have some wonderful LOVE SCHOOL sessions planned for the next few sessions. After leaning into the question of expectations around the holidays, we’ll have me and special guest Shannon Rose leading us in conversation about healing from therapist/ guru/ shaman abuse. Then we’ll have friendship expert Shasta Nelson talking about how to make new friends when you’re lonely and longing for a bestie or a larger friend group. If any of these topics sound relevant, we’d love to welcome you to LOVE SCHOOL.
Learn more and join LOVE SCHOOL here.