The Quiet Spaces: Holidays with a Close Family All While Holding Your Breath

The Holidays are a series of fun and festive conversations; they are loud, warm, and smell like my mother’s roast turkey. Next to me at the table, Liam is laughing at something his Uncle has said—that genuine, deep-bellied teenage laugh that I catch myself recording in my mind like a treasure. My sister drove two hours to be here, and the house is filled with the kind of comfortable chaos that most people dream of. I am surrounded by people who would drop everything for me, who loved my husband deeply, and who have been my bedrock since he passed away just over two years ago.

By all accounts, I am safe. I am loved. And yet, beneath the table, I find myself twisting my wedding ring and realizing that I am holding my breath.

There is a specific kind of loneliness that exists within a crowd of people who love you. It’s not the loneliness of being forgotten; it’s the loneliness of being known as a version of yourself you no longer fully inhabit.

When you are a widow and a single mother to a thirteen-year-old boy who is growing into a man’s frame before your very eyes, the holidays feel like a tightrope walk. You want to honor the traditions, to keep the "magic" alive for the sake of the family, and to show everyone that you are "okay." My family is wonderful, but there is an unspoken pressure to keep the conversation "kosher"—to keep the grief contained to nostalgic stories and shared tears over old photos.

But the things I struggle with now aren't always "Sunday Dinner" appropriate.

They are the jagged, messy pieces of a life rebuilt from scratch. It’s the paralyzing anxiety of making every single financial and parental decision for Liam alone. It’s the quiet, late-night battles with a house that feels too big and a silence that feels too heavy. It’s the internal conflict of wondering if I’m allowed to have a future that doesn't just look like a shrine to the past. These are the things that stay behind my teeth when my sister-in-law asks, "How are you doing?"

I say, "We’re doing well. Liam’s doing great in school." Both are true. Neither is the whole truth.

I’ve realized that I hold my breath because I’m afraid that if I exhale, the messy parts will spill out and ruin the "niceness" of the holiday. I don’t want to be the dark cloud. I don’t want my family to look at me with that specific brand of pity that makes me feel like a glass statue waiting to shatter. So, I keep my struggles to myself. They are mine to know, mine to navigate, and mine to carry.

There is a sacredness in having things that belong only to you, even if those things are difficult. But I’m learning that holding your breath for too long eventually makes your chest ache.

To anyone else sitting at a crowded table this season, feeling like a secret agent in your own life: I see you. It is okay to love your family fiercely and still feel like they don’t quite see the person you’ve become in the dark. It is okay to have a "Sunday Dinner" self and a "Midnight" self.

This year, my goal isn't to suddenly pour my heart out over the mashed potatoes. I’m not ready for that, and maybe I never will be. But I am trying to take one small, quiet breath. I’m trying to remind myself that I can be both the strong, widowed mother everyone admires and the woman who is still figuring out how to survive the next hour.

The secrets we keep don't make us dishonest; sometimes, they are just the walls we build to keep our inner world safe while it’s still under construction.