How is it the end of November??? There’s only one more day, and that will be my Weekly Rundown post- NaBloPoMo is almost over. NOOOO! I’m just getting started, ha ha.
Seriously- there were a few days where I was busy and had a little stress over getting a post published. But for the most part I’ve absolutely loved it (as I always do). There are still so many blog posts I haven’t commented on… and I still have things to say! Well, good thing we’ll all still be blogging in December, but I’ll miss the daily fun.
Speaking of missing things… I’m sad that Thanksgiving is over! I love the holiday; I love the buildup to it, all the shopping, cooking, and festivities. Now we’re fully into Christmas (put away your pumpkin- get out the gingerbread!) and while Christmas is my favorite holiday, I’m sad that Halloween and Thanksgiving are over for another year.
This Thanksgiving was especially poignant for me. Next year, my son probably won’t come home for Thanksgiving. He was only able to this year because of an anomaly in the Northwestern academic calendar. He also has a serious girlfriend, and if things progress, he’ll eventually be dividing holidays between two different families.
I was aware that this is probably the last time our Thanksgiving will look like this, with just the four of us at home. As we started dinner, I raised my glass to make a toast but couldn’t get the words out because I was overcome with emotion. I know it’s all good- we want our kids to grow up and have lives of their own- but I hate endings.
Recently, a colleague of ten years was leaving for a different job, and I was relieved that on her last day, I was in with a client when she left so I didn’t have to say goodbye (I did text her afterwards and we still keep in touch). If I’m at a party, I would rather sneak away rather than say goodbye to the host (of course touching base later; “Thanks so much, I had a great time! Sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye.” I know this makes me sound like a terrible person (although I believe this is called an “Irish goodbye” so I’m not the only one who does it!)
It’s not that I don’t want people to know what they mean to me, or that I won’t miss them- I just hate the actual moment of saying goodbye, the official ending. Does anyone else feel like this?
Do you hate endings? Are you good at saying goodbye? Are you angrily crossing me off your party guest list right now?
Top photo by david Griffiths on Unsplash
23 Responses
I don’t like endings either. I don’t like to say goodbye and I can’t imagine saying goodbye to milestones to my girls. I can relate to your emotion, mixed happiness and nostalgia of the most important era of our lives.
beautiful post Jenny.
Aw, thanks Coco. Yes, it’s so hard to say goodbye to phases of life with our kids.
Goodbyes are hard and endings of seasons you love are very hard, too. I think I handle them better than the average person because for whatever reason I am kind of a stoic person. Sometimes I feel bad that I’m not more emotional about things!
I am glad you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your whole nuclear family, though. It would be hard to not have all your kids home with you. And Paul is such a joyful guy to be around so holidays won’t be the same without him! So I completely understand why you were so emotional!
Yes, honestly of all the people not to be there, Paul will be the biggest loss! He just adds such a spark to everything.
I love beginnings but I hate goodbyes, so I am with you. I didn’t know what an Irish goodbye was until now but it seems that I am 100% Irish. The only solution that I can think of for Paul not coming home for on holidays is to work out an iron clad custody agreement for Easter, TG, Christmas, and New Years. He gets two of them for himself and his boo, and two of them belong to you. At one time we had a deal like this with my oldest SIL – she, her husband, and her kids would spend Christmas with inlaws/NYE with us, and the next year she would spend Christmas with us and NYE with them. Then she and husband moved back to the US and they started spending most of their holidays at their own home. Harumph.
NaBloPo is so fun! I’ve said this before, but I love having a full roster of posts every time that I go into Feedly. Jenny, you will always be on the guest list for any party that I give.
That’s generous of you Birchie, knowing that I will be sneaking away at the end. Hmm- I like this idea of a “custody agreement”- we’ll have to work something out.
I also hate goodbyes and I have definitely done that at parties before, it just feels less awkward for some reason!
I spent a couple Thanksgiving and Christmases alone when my parents and I lived in different states and I had to work on or around those days, but then we all ended up in the same state again so holidays have been together since and it feels so lovely! So with your son, you just never know what will happen in the future but I hope you’ll get to have holidays with your family again!
I actually think a goodbye can kind of ruin the flow of a party- so in my mind, I’m doing the host a favor by sneaking away.
Yes- you never know what will happen. It’s not like we’ll never see Paul for a holiday again! But… there’s no question things will look different.
I do not like goodbyes and would rather slink out the back!
I like Birchie’s idea of rotating holidays. Of course, that can get tricky if their are grandkids involved since we decided after a few years WE were going to be the ones to stay at home and grandparents had to come to us at special holidays.
I love that you had such a wonderful Thanksgiving and while this might be the end of a current stage of life, there will be other exciting stages ahead. (Maybe grandkids??? Can you imagine??? You would/will be such a fun grandmother, Jenny!!
I CANNOT WAIT FOR GRNDCHILDREN!!! They are in the plan… eventually. So… holidays will definitely be different once grandchildren are involved, but it will be worth it.
Aw, a last time it’ll be the four of you for Thanksgiving. I don’t mind saying good-bye. Funny thing, I thought an Irish goodbye was saying goodbye but then proceeding to stand at the door chatting for another 30 minutes plus. Maybe that’s just a me-thing, I’m Irish though – so that’s my version of an Irish goodbye. Ed has a serious girlfriend and he has to wait to propose to his GF until her sister’s wedding end of September. It stinks, but she’s only got one sister and that’s the focus right now and his GF is very involved in planning that wedding. Anyway, I was thinking about that – how pretty soon it’ll be a crap shoot of who will be where for the holidays. I also think once the kids start getting married, our big family celebrations will switch up. We probably won’t gather with all the cousins/various sides anymore, too complicated.
I think your version is the OPPOSITE of an “Irish goodbye.” But then again- you’re the Irish one, not me.
Yes- there’s no way all your kids and their eventual spouses and kids will all be gathering for every holiday! It’s just impossible, especially with that many. Sigh.
I have been down this road a few times as I am a couple of decades ahead of you and my kids are in their 30’s. The hardest was when my 2 youngest boys moved across the country (they did this one year apart) 10 years ago. When they came home once a year I was a wreck each time I had to say goodbye. Lo and behold 18 months ago one moved home (not at all happy circumstances ). He is sorting things out and is moving out Sunday. AND two weeks ago the youngest asked of he could live at our place for a few months as his work will be close to us for a while. We said yes but truly we want to get back to the empty nest life. Now I cry when I say goodbye to my youngest grandbabies who live 2 hours away. It never end just gets different haha
Ooh! I like that- “it never ends, just gets different.” I’ll tell myself that. And yes- it’s funny that your kids both wanted/needed to come home and you missed the empty next. Just goes to show… different isn’t necessarily bad.
I feel like the anticipation of an ending is worse than the actual ending, for me. That said, the last Thanksgiving with the four of you…ooof. That’s a tough one to swallow. But with every ending there is a beginning! When we were moving and literally everything was changing, my friend Sara said to me that change is exciting! And I was like…what. But she’s right. Once I got past the first bump things did get exciting and new and it was time to look at new things. I felt very emotional on our last family trip with the four of us, but now things are different, and I feel like I can leave that in the past with happy memories.
I don’t know, I’m just rambling here on a Saturday morning. What I’m saying is I get it!
Thanks, Nicole! I’m going to embrace that- Change is exciting! I mean it’s true- things can’t stay the same forever.
We were listening to my playlist on the way home from Thanksgiving this year. This is unusual, but we were trying to see if we could hook my phone up to the new car’s entertainment system. It feels vulnerable to let my husband listen to my playlist. ANYWAY. Tanya Tucker did a remake of Miranda Lambert’s song “The House that Built Me” and there’s a line in there “But once the kids were grown, it was just too much for me,” it being the house and the next thing I knew I was sobbing. It’s been a hard year for me and nothing is the same as it was at this time last year. But that actually makes the goodbyes all the more important because you never know if you’ll ever get another one.
FELLOW ENDING HATER HERE!!!! I would rather just like . . sneak out than acknowledge an ending. I don’t, but it’s what I’d prefer if I could! DOWN WITH ENDINGS. I do however love beginnings!
We’re in that same stage of life, Jenny…
I absolutely understand wanting grown up happiness and independence for your kids and simultaneously feeling nostalgic for times when they were little and dependent. But I trust that our kids will find a way to make it work and that we will fin new ways of celebrating… Hugs!
I’d be delighted to have you on my guest list and as long as we got some good chats in, not saying a formal goodbye wouldn’t matter so much. XOXO
I hate endings. I wish they never had to happen… but it’s something we all have to deal with over and over. I try not to think about the fact that something might be the last time (in the moment) because it gets me sad but I do try to enjoy every second to the fullest.
Thanks for being such a cheerleader for NaBloPoMo. I am sure we’ll have more reading to catch up in December 🙂
There are 2 things that determine whether or not I’m willing to say goodbye. The first is whether the thing that I’m saying goodbye to is something that I actively want to come to an end, or something that I prefer not to come to an end, or something that I just don’t care. Like, when I resigned from my previous workplace, I’m quite sure that I wanted to say goodbye in that case. Of course, we still need to determine whether or not I was good at saying goodbye in that scenario. It’s just that elaborating on that will make this comment of mine exceed 1000 words. The second is that if it is something that I prefer not to come to an end, then whether or not I’m willing to say goodbye is determined by whether or not I’ve psychologically prepared to say goodbye ahead of time.
Now I’d like to look at the situations you discussed in this blog post, Jenny, which are about NaBloPoMo, the end of any given month or any given year, the end of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, the last time your Thanksgiving with just the four of you at home, a colleague of ten years leaving for a different job, and sneaking away rather than saying goodbye to the host, respectively. But to elaborate on that will also make this comment of mine exceed 400 words. That being said, when you point out that you do actually enjoy Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, it does occur to me that you will always make time preparing for those 3 festivals, and that will happen whether or not your son and your daughter reach adulthood.
Goodbyes are tough…my son moved to LA this year, THAT was super tough. He’s surprised me a couple times such as for mother;s Day for my BD and Canadian Thanksgiving. Every time he leaves is still hard – I am so looking forward to him coming home for Christmas. He’s still young and misses home, comes home often, but he may not always have that flexibility. We still have the younger one away at university but she still comes home the occasional weekend (less so now that she has boyfriend). The struggle is real! Visiting via NaBloPoMo
Did you know that my brother and his wife have been together for over 20 years and they STILL do two Thanksgivings every year! Isn’t that crazy? Everyone lives in town so it’s not a huge deal, but I would not want to deal with TWO big meals every Thanksgiving! Eeks.
Goodbyes/endings are so fraught for me. I get so melancholy. And something like this – not having your whole unit for a holiday as important to you as Thanksgiving – has to be so emotional. <3