I Owe You a Letter

Feeling Hollow After the Holidays

My mom used to sing us a song called “Love Is Something.” I think I’ve written about it in these letters before. The lyrics go:

Love is something, if you give it away

Give it away

Give it away,

Love is something, if you give it away

You’ll end up having more.

I have given a lot of love in the last month. Damien and I have hosted houseguests and parties and visits with friends and relatives, socializing at our dining room table for hours instead of chilling out on the couch. We’ve watched less TV and played more Scrabble (a big win) and neglected our normal exercise routines in favor of epic ping pong battles, which were riotously fun but probably not rigorous enough to offset all the rich holiday fare. We’ve visited museums, galleries, wineries, music events, parties and parks, eager to share our community with our beloved friends and family.

My mind has been as crowded as my house, full of competing and sometimes contradictory thoughts and feelings. One minute I was giddily stuffing clementines into the toes of our Christmas stockings with my sister, the next I was sideswiped by grief for my mom. Deep in conversation with a friend, I felt a jolt of anxiety about the toilet paper supply in the guest room.

I dropped off Tom Ka soup to a friend who has Covid and visited another friend who recently lost a family member, but I kept having the uneasy feeling that I was missing something, or, rather, somebody. In this season of giving, I kept wondering who was wanting something I could give? I left a coat I no longer need by the door, hoping to share it with someone who could use it, but I kept forgetting to put it in my car, and then my heart broke every time I saw an unhoused woman shivering in the street, as if my used coat could have somehow saved her.

I made ten times more decisions than usual, all without the support of the routines that keep me grounded, accepting invitations without entering the dates in my calendar, which, in one case, resulted in my missing a concert with Damien that we were both looking forward to. I floated the idea of a big party, and then scrambled to remember who I’d mentioned it to when I realized we wouldn’t be able to pull it off. Perhaps worst of all, I stopped writing in my journal, and so all the feelings I had, both good and bad, had nowhere to live except in my poor brain.

Now it’s January 2, and I owe you a letter, and I feel utterly hollowed out. I’m tired and weepy, and I feel like I’m seeing the world from the wrong end of a telescope.

Giving love away didn’t leave me feeling like I had more. It left me feeling like James Brown being helped offstage after a particularly sweaty show.

Mr. Danny Ray helping James Brown off the stage. Image courtesy of the James Brown Family Foundation.

Sasha Hamdani, MD, a psychiatrist and ADHD expert who has a huge Instagram following as “The Psych Doctor,” described exactly the sensation I’m feeling in this post:

She’s right: I have been overstimulated for so long that I blew out the circuitry of my brain. I know that when I’ve had some rest, I will remember this holiday season as one of my favorites. The love I feel will come flooding back, just the way a tsunami sucks the water out of the sea before sending it back a hundredfold.

ADHD makes planning, prioritizing, and managing emotions harder, and the holidays are a classic trigger for overwhelm. But there’s something else going on here, too. I was feeling a compulsion to say yes to everything, to live life at a cadence that’s not natural for me. I was acting like Buddy the Elf.

Much as I wish it were otherwise, Elf culture is not really my culture. I’m an introvert, and I’m a writer. Going a whole month without taking time to recharge and reflect is never going to be a good idea for me. And yet, every year, in one way or another, I can’t seem to resist the urge to pull a Buddy.

For the record, my houseguests all did an excellent job of respecting my space and time, and, at least from my perspective, they seemed to manage their own energy well, too. It’s not easy to stay in someone else’s house, but they were all ideal guests. I just didn’t do a good job of managing my time and energy, mostly because I never wanted the fun to stop.

The weirdest part of this whole season, in some ways, is January 1, when we’re all supposed to slam on the brakes and stop having a good time, trading the excesses of the holiday season for prim resolution-keeping. I both crave and dread the calm, and this year’s abrupt transition is especially challenging. All I can say is that sitting quietly, sipping a cup of peppermint tea, and writing this letter to you has been a balm for my soul.

I wrote it quickly and didn’t spend much time editing it. It is my final, modest, sloppily wrapped gift of the holiday season, but I’m sending it with all my love.