The walls we build around us to keep out sadness also keeps out joy.
~Jim Rohn
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I’m still trying to decide if I’m going to decorate for Christmas. That’s how bad things have gotten.
Already a year ago (crazy how fast this time has gone by), after two years of trying to get pregnant we finally saw our very first positive pregnancy test. Six weeks later we sat in the doctor’s office, me crying, Corey fighting it. Our long overdue sigh of relief (I can get pregnant!) was replaced with even more stress and angst (maybe I can get pregnant, but can I stay pregnant?!).
We decided to take some time off from the whole fertility journey to recover. It’s been 11 months.
God has been gracious to us this year. We’ve truly had a rather delightful year, succeeding in our careers and falling more madly in love (if that’s even possible). It’s been good to have the year off. The hormones never did treat me very well and Corey always had a hard time sitting by watching his wife be internally abused.
It’s nice to know that as I write I feel more tied, more together. I don’t resent Sadness, but I’m fine having some time away from him. Which is what has me keeping my Christmas decorations boxed up in the basement.
It’s not that I don’t want to decorate, it’s not that I don’t love this time of year. It’s just that I want to make sure Sadness isn’t hanging out nearby and I’m just too busy to notice. I’ve learned all too well that when that happens he starts to try to make himself obvious by peeking his head in other – usually random – areas of my life. Road rage. Impatience in my job, with my husband, my friends and family, even our dog. Annoyance with strangers. Crocodile tears for no good reason. You get my point.
So, I wrote this post on my blog explaining my absence from my blog this week … or month … or winter. I’m cutting things out. Things that I love, but things that have permeated every square inch of my calendar this year, leaving me with a good excuse to not feel. I need time to rest and reflect. Time to stretch and grow. I need my creative bucket to have time to dry out and fill back up (fresh rain is always better than stale water). I simply need time to feel.
It’s not always easy, but I owe myself the freedom to, the time to, the healing power to.
To feel.
Maybe in the quiet I’ll look around and not find Sadness sitting nearby after all. Maybe I’ll find Joy and Contentment instead. And, if I’m wrong, if I do stop long enough to allow Sadness to pay me a visit I won’t pretend like no one’s home. I’ve learned that he isn’t always the easiest to have around, but he does always leave me better. And, when he departs Joy and Contentment are always waiting in the wings. Always.
Merry Christmas, Lovelies. I pray you give yourself a moment to feel. You might just be surprised at who is sitting by your side.
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
a very heartwarming post. sounds to me like you are doing quite well and are very in tune.
Jessica, I understand where you’re coming from. I hope your time to reflect is good for you and you find that you want to put up your Christmas decs, among other things. :)
*hugs* and love to you from Scotland. x
I’m fairly new to your site, so I don’t know all the backround information, but my heart truly goes out to you in this Christmas season. I hope you find the real meaning of Christmas this year, and that you find a loving Saviour whos biggest desire is to take away our hurts, wash away our tears, and hold us close to His heart. His love heals all wounds. While we can’t always understand the what and the why of our painful situations, He is always constant, always there. Praying joy and peace to you, Merry Christmas.
Thanks Jessica, for being so honest & open. This among many other things keeps me coming back to TCM everyday! Each of you ladies are so inspiring & really get my mind thinking about things in a new way. I’m sure if you are like me the stress of being so busy all the time really wears on you too. Being that this is my first full year of business, I still have a hard time saying no to people. I have been so stressed lately because I have had so many shoots that I can’t keep up. I finally this week had to say no, I’m booked until the middle of January. It was like a load was lifted off. I NEVER want to feel like I don’t absolutely LOVE photography, because it is my passion. I just have to reel myself back in for a little bit. I hope that with your rest & reflection, you too will feel all that totally awesome JOY again! Merry Christmas! My prayers are with you as well.
As a mother of 4 who has also suffered from fertility issues, a miscarriage and postpartum depression I feel your pain, but we get through it and on the other side awaits a new normal. If there is anything that I have learned through it all, it’s just that… normal is relative and ever changing. Take the time, it’s too often these days that we are so busy moving on to the next thing we don’t take that needed time to feel and more often than not it creeps back in. {{hugs}} for you as you move along in your journey.
Beautifully written. Thank you for sharing so openly. You never know what someone is going through in life. A reason we all need to be a little more kind and compassionate.
HUG!
Jessica I just adore your writing, the way you share your heart. I’ve loved to follow you since you did the Photography Series here, simply because you have such a way with words. I appreciate your sharing this today, as I know it will touch many women out there. Andrea hit it on the head – normal is relative and ever evolving. My prayers and love are with you this season. Xoxo.
Jessica:
Your post brought me to tears. I know your pain. Four years ago, our first Christmas in our new house I had a miscarriage on Christmas. It was my second and it was devastating, it made the following year difficult. However, I found out just after Christmas that year I was pregnant again (and once again we lost the baby just after the first trimester it was my fourth loss). Each year as the holiday approaches I feel mixed blessings — and it is a bitter sweet time for us. I applaud you for taking the time to share and for taking the time to work through this in your own way (so many of us don’t).
This one hit home…We had our first miscarriage years ago right at Thanksgiving…I couldn’t bear to put the tree up that year. I was so…somewhere else. But two days before Christmas while walking through Sears the Christmas clearance isle called my name..I suckered out and bought everything to put a tree together. The tree topper was this beautiful angel… I figured “how fitting?”.
Every year one of my kids now puts that angel on top of the tree and every year there is just that place deep in my heart that longs for those missing little ones that should have been putting that topper on the tree as well….but life goes on the way life goes on. The struggles we went through to have those little kids in this house was never an easy road for us but if nothing else we appreciate every minute we have with them. I think we are better parents than we would have been had we not been struck by lighting over and over. The fight to have them has been long…some of us just have to fight twice as hard but it is so worth the battle. The journey changed me in so many ways. Take some time and pull off that road for sure.
Hugs and wishing you peace this Holiday season.
Jessica,
Just wanted to let you know that it is OK to take time for “you”. There is no better time of the year for reflection; we all have been given so much and sometimes need to stop and remember that. You are a beautiful person inside and out-I have enjoyed your workshop and love your personality. Also, love that you are a TN girl.
Go get the Amy Grant Christmas CD “A Christmas Album” it was her first I think. It has Tennesse Christmas on it. Listen to it, cry hard, and rejoice hard!! Remember that God has a plan for you—trust Him. I know everything will work out.
Much peace to you,
Vikki O’Brien
This post really resonated with me. I have experienced some of the greatest joys and losses of my life over the past 3 years and it has taken a toll. The need to take that space to breathe is obvious, but I don’t even know if I know how to anymore. Good for you to realize that you need it and make it happen for yourself.
My heart goes out to you. I hope this Christmas you will truly be able to feel the Savior’s arms around you and feel his comfort. Blessings.
Jessica I love you. Even though I don’t know you and we’ve never met other than in your class, I love the person that you are. I love your honesty. I love your compassion for others. I love your willingness to help anyone who need help, and give that person 110%. I love your openness. But with all of that, with spending so much time taking care of each of us, you haven’t left much time to take care of yourself. I’m so happy that you recognized the need to step away for awhile and just enjoy yourself. You are such a real and amazing woman. Enjoy your time away and know that although I will miss hearing what you have been up to I’m excited what this absence from us will bring for you. Have a wonderful winter, and from the bottom of my heart thank you for being SO REAL, and SO WONDERFUL!
Thank you Jessica for sharing truly where you are and what’s in your heart. Thank you for having the courage to take a step back and do what you know is best for you, regardless of what everyone around you is bussling about and doing. Last Sunday (the 29th) my husband and I were watching an old Hallmark Christmas movie and I told him that I love the movie but it always makes me sad. He asked why and I explained that it was while watching this movie, after a LONG day of Black Friday shopping, that I started cramping and ultimately early the next morning lost our first baby. That was 6 years ago last Monday (the 30th) and I appreciated the time while watching that movie that I was able to share my continued sadness with him and just FEEL it, if only for a bit. I hope you will gain great joy and contentment in the coming weeks!
While I have been blessed with three amazing children, my heart will ache this Christmas as we hang two angel ornaments for the two that we lost. May you find a way to ‘feel’ that you leads you to peace! Your writing is so beautifully honest!
I just wanted to share that I have been where you are. After many years of trying and three losses, my heart was just numb. It is good and healthy to feel. I applaud your authenticity and pray that you find courage to keep trying, to keeping putting yourself out there, keep living. Pain is a part of life, unfortunately. But is is just a part – not the whole.
Be good to yourself.
Melissa
((hugs)) I’ve been there… ?
Thank you for being so brave to share your feelings! I know a lot of us can relate to your situation. Just recently I read a quote that you might in enjoy (from the book Visual Poetry)
“The complexity of life easily overwhelms, and it numbs all of our five senses. Thinking that perhaps buying something new will be the fix, we pile on more and more. The result is both dry and hollow. Then along comes a poem or a poetic picture, and it reawakens our senses. The best photographs do the same. It may not be sunshine but rather pain. And pain, too is a gift.”
Do what you love, for you, and be selfish!
this most amazing part of your blog is that i am goiing through some very different circumstaces; grown children, a marriage that is in a downward spiral and yet, i too see the God of ALL somehow helping me find who i am in Him, and how to feel and be in control by letting Him have it all. it is lonley but i am not alone
blessings, and prayers,
faith
as the tree that had to be bought, sits waiting to be decorated one week now it sits beautiful and empty and the same time. kinda like me