If this is your first Christmas alone, you might be asking yourself: Does divorce in the holidays ever get easier? Will it feel like this every year? The holidays are a painful time following a divorce but you will soon discover that you are more resilient than you ever knew. Letting go of old traditions paves the way to create new traditions and you will eventually find joy again in the holidays. This is how I found mine.

Regardless of how long you've been in a relationship, divorce during the holidays is brutal. I'll never forget how my breath was taken away when I saw a Christmas tree display, during that first holiday season. My knees practically buckled. We were that family that decorated, celebrated, crafted, sang, gamed and entertained. My partner and I would fall into each other's arms Christmas night exhausted, grateful and mesmerized by the magic of the holidays.  That is until the lies and the divorce imploded us. Confusion, paralysis and anger, prevailed.  No way to frost a turd on this one. It sucked.

 Quite uncharacteristically, I leaned on my friends and family. I was lucky that my Mom was still alive and a pillar of strength. How did I cope? The answer to that is " I have no idea!" I know that I needed to cry and cry, so I walked and walked and then I walked some more.

True, my friends and family were stalwart in their support. The other piercing truth is we must, at times, walk through it alone. I figured fluids would be leaving my body one way or another so why not get outside and sweat and cry, sweat and cry and sweat and cry. Release. Release from the story that I had my life plan. Release that there was so much I was powerless over. And the most grave, release my perception of who I thought my lover, my partner was. 'Tis mind boggling to this day.

Nature turned out to be my healer in divorce 

Nature saved me. When I looked at the magnificence of a tree, of a rose or even the tenacity of squirrels burrowing for the winter, I reminded myself that I am made from that same fabric of Mother Earth. I wasn't that different from a tree who had lost a limb, or the rose who lies dormant. I didn't like the unknowing, because my ego had told my soul, we have a different plan.  Mother nature laughed, wept and healed with me.

Santa has come for a few years now and mourning still resides in a pocket of my heart. But the light of what was no longer casts its shadow on today. I labored and squirreled away my emotional sobriety tools. I am no exception to nature's resilience. Today,  even in the dead of winter, I blossom. And the crazy and not so crazy thing is, as I grow, our community is blossoming into a lovely nurturing space. Witnessing and participating in this thriving garden truly makes for a happy holiday!

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