BROKEN HEART - CHRISTMAS
Here’s to the broken-hearted tonight.
Not the kind of heartbreak that’s loud or obvious
,
You can be laughing in the living room
In the middle of music and warmth and connection,
You can be fully present and still feel hollow
.
Lightness and darkness can coexist
in the same body,
.
Nothing is wrong with you
.
and tending to it matters
.
Christmas is about company
.
are the presence of your people —
So when someone is missing from that circle —
someone you lost
,
of course the feelings get complicated.
You feel it for others.
For those who are suffering.
When those feelings start to stir,
Productive busy. Helpful busy.
And it works — for a while.
Because emotional strength is built the same way
physical strength is.
By staying with it.
When you let yourself feel what you’re feeling in the moment,
And the more capacity you have,
the less chaos you create,
Most of us didn’t grow up with great language for
what we feel.
or process it,
That doesn’t make the feelings dangerous.
Tonight, people show up at parties, at gatherings, in spaces that are meant to feel joyful and bright in
their best clothes,
their best energy,
Joy matters.
It’s part of what makes you you.
It happens in the honest ones.
Masks aren’t required.
it’s okay to say their name.
To tell someone you wish another person were here too.
The body softens.
Your nervous system releases and resets
A moment of grief doesn’t cancel joy.
There’s nothing to fix.
Just presence.
Just staying.
You are perfect as you are.
so did you.
isn’t weakness.
The cracked-open, tender, bruised, quietly aching hearts.
the kind where joy and sadness share the same space.
and then feel it hit when you’re alone in the bathroom.
and then a wave comes out of nowhere.
You can be grateful and grieving at the same time.
in the same hour,
in the same breath.
Something in your heart is tender,
This time of year is complicated.
And the real presents of Christmas
your family, your friends, your community, your tribe.
someone you love,
someone you don’t get to hold tonight —
You feel it for yourself.
For empty chairs.
For names no longer said.
a lot of us get busy.
The kind of busy that looks responsible from the outside.
Until it doesn’t.
By meeting the weight.
By not putting it down and promising to come back later.
you build the capacity to hold it.
the less distraction you need,
and the more grounded you become.
Maybe we weren’t taught how to name it,
or share it safely.
It just makes them unfamiliar.
their best faces,
trying to make the most of it —
And the hard stuff matters too.
Real connection doesn’t always happen in the loudest moments.
This isn’t Halloween.
If there’s someone you miss tonight,
It’s okay to share that grief.
When something is spoken, it comes into the light.
The breath returns.
And then you get to keep going.
Sharing something hard doesn’t ruin the night.
No performance required.
Just breathing.
Merry Christmas.
Just as a perfect, innocent child entered the world
—
And holding all of these feelings at once
It’s human.
