This morning, I watched this NPR piece on Instagram explaining how over the past 2,000 years earth has shifted enough that the astrological signs we grew up with are inaccurate.
This is the new chart. If I weren't still a Leo, though barely, I'd reject it outright.
Anyway, in this new and questionable world, my mom was a Leo and my dad was a Virgo. I've always been super close to Cancers, Leos, and Virgos. But now my Cancer friends would suddenly be Geminis? Which I know nothing about.
I feel like everything I've believed is now thrown into question.
***
I cried and cried in acupuncture this morning.
It wasn't about the star chart. Just, whatever she unlocked opened a flood of emotion.
Like my acupuncturist turned off the light, closed the door, and I started sobbing. I couldn't really move, because you know, the needles. So I lay on my back and cried, tears pooling in my ears.
When I spoke to Nick afterwards, I told him acupuncture made me cry.
He laughed, and I said, "Why are you laughing?"
"She stabbed you with a whole bunch of needles. Of course you were crying."
***
I've been crying a lot. I don't even like Thanksgiving, but the holiday walloped me.
'Tis the season.
After my mom died, I told the family that I wasn't doing Christmas. We were going away. And they could put up a tree and decorate if they wanted, but I wasn't going to.
I cannot bear the coziness of the tree with all the lights. I'm wrecked by the thought of all those sentimental ornaments.
I have so many memories of my mom in the red chair, enjoying the lights, cozying up with my kids.
My mom decorated gifts perfectly. Perfectly. And she was so happy to wrap for you. You could give her your gifts and she'd make them gorgeous, whimsical, lovely.
So I haven't done anything, and they haven't done anything, and it's been oddly liberating.
We have a lone poinsettia from a crew fundraiser.
That's enough.
***
If you've ever been depressed, then this may resonate: sometimes you wonder if you're normal sad or not normal sad.
I'm sad, I'm very sad, but I'm quite sure I'm not depressed.
Like Peeta in the Hunger Games. Real or not real?
I think this is real sadness, profound grief.
Not that depression isn't real. But being depressed has, in the past, made me feel so sad when nothing calamitous had happened.
I don't feel hopeless. Just devastated.
Not every moment.
But on the whole the holidays are brutal. There are so many memories swirling around.
There's a giant mama-shaped hole.
***
Which is not to say that all is darkness. We have joy!
We fly to London Friday night.
A friend—in fact, multiple friends—pointed out that they have Christmas in the UK.
But I'm not trying to escape Christmas. I just didn't want Christmas at home.
None of our home traditions, no familiar decorations, no every-Christmas foods.
I remember my mom being unable to eat chocolate covered cherries after her sister died, because they were her favorite.
India wanted peppermint bark, because my mom bought scads of it every Christmas. She spent a small fortune on it.
I couldn't, I said. Maybe next year.
No North Dakota sticky buns. I've never actually made them.
Maybe next year. Maybe not.
***
Anyway, I'm just sitting around eating peanut butter banana toast.
Like the Leo I still am.
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