12 Days of Yule

12 Days of Yule 

            I honestly wasn’t even sure if I was going to write this, I haven’t been much in the mood to celebrate considering the events that have transpired since the releasing events of Samhain. I received an email to update my website’s payment method to keep it running as it no longer was a valid card on file.  The card wasn’t valid because neither was my relationship.  I asked my spirit team to rid my life of anything that wasn’t serving my highest good anything that was holding me back from achieving the high vibrational life I desired.  I told them I was more than willing to walk away, when necessary, from anything that was causing me negativity and discomfort.  Next thing I know they did just that.  I could no longer ignore the things I once did about my relationship. I love him with all my heart. Next thing I know me, and my partner couldn’t communicate and understand one another.  We were constantly fighting. Worse than ever before.  Boundaries were being crossed and things happening that I told myself I couldn’t live with.  I truly believe he is a fantastic man.  He works hard to provide for his family and has more energy than anyone person should be allowed to possess.  He is a thoughtful and dedicated father.  He would come home from a long hard day’s work and help anyway he could.  I truly do believe he wanted to be everything he could as a man and a father.  I will always be grateful for the things that he will teach my children and the story we have had.  He taught me how to love myself.  I prayed for him on my knees asking for a partner in life that will help me grow and change into the person I want to be. I truly believe he did just that.  I couldn’t have become the woman I am without him. My love for him, my desire to prove I could be better for him proved to myself what I am capable of.  So, if all that is true why did I call off my wedding planned for July.  Why did I break up my family and choose to move back in with my parents an hour away? Why did I have to switch my son’s school and go from a stay-at-home mom to a mad dash to find a job?

 I thought about this a lot over the last month. Did I make the wrong choice? Even an existential crisis occurred, were the Christians right and celebrating the pagan holidays disrupted my whole life and caused me to throw everything away? The last month I have been consumed with the internal work of healing and understanding my decision to end my most recent image of what life was to start all over all again. To say I couldn’t get into the Yule spirit quite like I had for the others was an understatement.  My mind was so occupied with everything else. I felt like I was barely functioning having fallen back into some old patterns of smoking way too much to deal with anxiety and using anything to build dopamine luckily the holidays have a lot of sugary goodness for just that.  I spent most of the month barely sleeping waking up tired with no creativity and inspiration.  I honestly thought oh well I am done I won’t bother paying for the website and celebrating yule what am I going to say I manifested exactly?  How is writing about this going to help me or anyone else?  Tomorrow is the last day of Yule, and it is also New Year’s Eve and I plan to go out to a bar for the first time in a decade to ring in the new year with good friends and good music.  So, I knew it was today or never that I would decide whether I would write this or not and today I felt more inspired than I have all month.  I couldn’t wait to write this article because the cloud of the last month had lifted, and it all made perfect sense to me in doing absolutely nothing but enjoying the moments and trying to heal and figure out a way to understand and live with all the changes I was celebrating Yule in just the ways I was meant too.

Yule is a pagan celebration of winter solstice it is the rebirth of the sun. It highlights the longest night of the year. The sun stands still and then gradually the days become warmer, longer, and brighter going forward.  I set up my altar on the very first day.  Then I rested for 12 days.  I spent days with my children playing and counting down the days till the holiday.  A lot of the traditional Christian Christmas traditions are like the celebration of Yule like wreaths, mistletoe, decorating the Christmas tree, baking holiday treats, giving gifts to those you love.  Most importantly to celebrate Yule one traditionally would rest and reflect.  Take time to assess all that one must be thankful for.  Allow the body time to rest from the years long hard efforts to grow and develop.  Just as the sun stands still after growing colder and darker.  The body, mind, and soul should stand still and unmoving assessing the aftermaths of everything and in my case every celebration up to this point. 

Yule is my last pagan holiday on the calendar since I started all this and leaving it unfinished because I didn’t feel like I had manifested everything I thought wouldn’t have served me. I truly feel this was my chapter to rest and recover from everything I released from my life.  If I would’ve been writing this before today, I would’ve played the victim and justified my decision to leave.  Aired out all the dirty laundry of my relationship to say see I had to leave because while I truly do believe he is a wonderful man and I truly do believe we were sent together to grow together we weren’t growing.  Growing and healing isn’t easy. Facing the parts of ourselves that we don’t like isn’t easy.  Our past didn’t make it any easier for us.  When things got tough, he ran to his past.  He had a baby with his ex and try as I might to overlook that and forgive that it always left me feeling insecure about my position in his life.  He also tended to doubt himself whether this was the choice he wanted, and it always felt like he was one foot out the door.

 When I wrote on Samhain what I wanted in a relationship it was somebody who loves when I ramble on and on about a topic that excites passion in me.  He didn’t.  Someone who knows my love for harry potter because it was an escape for me from the reality of painful situations in my childhood so if given the chance to propose at Hogwarts, they would no matter what.  Somebody who thought it was adorable that I wanted to get married on a new moon in cancer even if it meant waiting almost 3 years because it symbolizes new beginnings in home and family.  He didn’t. Somebody who would help me figure out how to get my YouTube videos to upload because they know how terrible I am with technology.  Somebody who watched all my TikTok’s and liked every single one because they know what it means to me, and they are my biggest fan.  Someone who tells me I can meet all my goals and dreams and listens to them with interest and desire to know how they can help me achieve them.  Someone who believes that me achieving my goals and happiness will only increase their own happiness.  Someone who appreciates all the things I do and try to do to make their life easier.  Someone who never tells me I’m crazy or too emotional.  My crazy, emotional, loyal, loving, albeit sometimes insecure and searching for validation self is just some of the many things to love about me. They will reassure me as many times as I need.  They truly love me for who I am and couldn’t picture a life without me. When I tell them those are the things that I am looking for they say you just want someone to love you not that I am looking for someone to idolize me.  I don’t need to be idolized.  I don’t even need to be loved.  I do, however, need to have a partner in life that hears me, sees me, inspires me, and encourages me to continue to grow.  I felt stuck like I couldn’t open my wings.  That I kept trying to go higher and higher with a weight around my ankles.  Like a cage was around me.  I would say look how far I have come.  He would say look how far you have to go.  Eventually I decided that if I wanted to go farther, I needed to be free.  I couldn’t be surrounded by an environment that didn’t feel like it was improving my life but rather hindering it. 

While I knew without a doubt in my mind that we weren’t helping each other anymore I still struggled to walk away.  I struggled because he is amazing and the things here aren’t things that aren’t fixable.  I think if he just decided to see me differently to value me and love me then we could’ve been something great, but I also knew that nothing I did or said.  No matter how loud I screamed, cried, and begged it wouldn’t make him love me. All I could do was love me like I wanted. Find my own place in the world. Put all the time and energy I was spending on trying to be good enough for him on trying to build the life that is good enough for me.  I have taken Yule to relax and recharge to plan my new life going forward.  To release the feelings, I have this bittersweet ending.  When we go through a breakup, especially if we were the ones to walk away, we have a need to justify that decision.  I could open up about all the toxic fights and nights of crying and say see he’s a bad guy I had to hurt him and an old version of me one just a couple weeks ago would’ve done just that.  Taking the time during Yule to reach out to people I owed apologies to and to process again and again the relationship.  To talk with him and understand that we both felt anxious and overwhelmed in the relationship.  To start to build a friendship and co-parenting relationship with him.  To understand that he is the father of my children and ruining his reputation and putting him down to justify my decisions wouldn’t do any good.  I don’t want to hurt him because I feel as though he hurt me.  I don’t want to play a victim in a toxic relationship when we’re all a little toxic at times. I can love him and know that he is a great man while also knowing that he wasn’t the one for me. So #incaseyougiveashit just as the sun stood still my soul stood still and allowed itself to heal and process so that it too can grow brighter and warmer in the days to follow.