Before my husband died, I was that person.

The one trying to make everyone else happy, showing up to every gathering, baking the cookies no one asked for, saying yes when I was already running on fumes.

I thought the holidays were about doing it all.

Now I know they’re about doing what actually matters.

🎁 The Shift That Changed Everything

After James passed, everything about the holidays felt different.

The traditions we built together suddenly had an empty chair in the middle of them. The lights, the music, even the smell of pine, all hurt.

So one year, I just… stopped.

I opted out.

I didn’t decorate.

I didn’t go to every dinner.

I didn’t force myself to be festive.

I just gave myself permission to not perform joy.

And the world didn’t fall apart.

In fact, it started to make sense again.

🕯️ What “Opting Out” Really Means

Opting out doesn’t mean you hate the holidays.

It means you’re done pretending.

It’s choosing presence over pressure.

It’s saying, “Not this year,” to things that drain you and “Maybe next time,” to traditions that no longer fit.

It’s celebrating in ways that feel authentic — even if that means lighting one candle and calling it a day.

🌙 The Freedom in Letting Go

When I stopped doing things out of obligation, I found something beautiful: peace.

I started noticing small joys again: quiet mornings, a single cup of coffee, the smell of something baking because I wanted to, not because it was expected.

I stopped measuring the holidays by how “merry” they looked and started measuring them by how calm I felt.

And maybe that’s what the holidays were supposed to be all along.

🫶 Give Yourself Permission This Year

If this season feels heavy, skip the party.

If decorating feels like a chore, don’t.

If you’d rather spend the day in pajamas than at a table full of people, do it.

Traditions can be rewritten.

And sometimes, the most healing thing you can do is step away from the noise until it feels safe to come back.

You’re allowed to celebrate softly, quietly, or not at all.

🎄 The Heart of It

This year, I’m choosing peace over perfection.

Presence over pressure.

And meaning over maintenance.

Maybe next year I’ll go all out again.

Or maybe I won’t.

Either way, I’ll be okay.

Because opting out isn’t giving up.

It’s choosing yourself.

On the moments when it still doesn’t feel real

Sometimes my mind slips.

I’ll be driving, folding laundry, scrolling my phone — and for a second, I forget that James is gone. It’s been almost four years, but sometimes it still hits like the first day:

I have a husband who died.

Grief does that. It doesn’t leave. It just changes shape.

When Reality Feels Like a Sudden Crash

There are days when I can talk about James with calm acceptance.

And then there are days when a song, a smell, or the way the light hits a certain corner of the house brings everything back: the hospital rooms, the fear, the silence afterward.

It’s not always sadness that catches me off guard. Sometimes it’s disbelief.

How could something so normal —our morning coffee, our plans, our routines — just stop existing?

The Strange Longevity of Grief

People assume grief has an expiration date.

It doesn’t. It just gets quieter.

It becomes part of your wiring; a soft echo in the background of everything you do. Even when life looks “normal” again, grief is still there, tapping your shoulder just to remind you: This happened. You survived it.

And honestly? Sometimes that reminder feels like too much.

The Universal Part

You don’t have to have lost a spouse to understand this feeling.

Maybe your “James” was a parent, a friend, a relationship, or even a version of yourself you had to bury.

Loss is loss. It changes the way you move through the world.

And just when you think you’ve outgrown it, grief shows up again, not to ruin you, but to remind you how much you once loved, how deeply you once lived.

The Flashback Moments

Grief doesn’t always look like crying.

Sometimes it’s zoning out in the grocery store because you picked up their favorite cereal.

Sometimes it’s laughing with friends and suddenly realizing there’s one person who will never hear your story.

Sometimes it’s just that quiet, heavy sentence floating through your mind: I can’t believe this is real.

It’s like trauma and love take turns steering your memories.

Learning to Coexist With the Ache

Here’s what I’ve realized:

Grief isn’t the enemy. It’s the proof.

It’s the reminder that we got to experience something worth missing.

So when it creeps back in, when it whispers “remember?”, I try not to fight it.

I let it sit beside me, because that’s where James still lives: in the remembering.

The Takeaway

If you’re still floored by your own story sometimes. That’s okay.

It doesn’t mean you’re broken.

It means you’ve lived through something the mind can’t fully comprehend, and you’re still finding ways to carry it.

Grief never gives up, but neither do we.

On love, loss, and knowing some souls are meant to find each other in this lifetime

I came across a quote that stopped me in my tracks:

“I’m glad we existed together in this moment of time.”

It came from James Butts, a former Postmates executive who shared those words when he entered hospice care after being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. He was documenting his own death journey, not in a morbid way, but with this profound clarity about what really matters when time is running out.

That line hit me like a lightning bolt.

Because I thought: That’s exactly how I feel about my James.

The Beauty of “Existed Together”

My late husband, James, and I shared fifteen years together, from our early twenties to adulthood. We were figuring life out side by side, learning, growing, building a home, and raising a family.

By the time we were parted by his death, we weren’t just two people in love; we were a story. A shared existence.

When I read James Butts’ words, I understood instantly: that’s what our love was.

Not perfect, not polished, but real; a moment of time where two souls collided, and for a while, everything made sense.

The Sacredness of Time

We talk about soulmates like they last forever, but maybe the truth is that some soul connections are meant to be temporary. They come in to shape you, to wake you up, to carve meaning into your story, and then they have to go.

It hurts. It always will.

But the beauty is in knowing you existed together, that your timelines aligned, even if only for a while.

That’s the gift.

The Science of Memory and the Afterlife

There’s this piece of research that fascinates me. Scientists have discovered that about seven minutes after you die, your brain experiences a surge of activity, especially in areas tied to memory and consciousness.

Some believe this could be the brain replaying your life; a final montage of your most meaningful moments.

If that’s true, I already know how mine will go.

James will take up the majority of my reel.

The road trips. The laughter in the car. The quiet nights on the porch. The everyday moments that felt ordinary but ended up meaning everything.

That’s how deeply woven he is into my story.

The Kind of Love That Leaves an Echo

When I think of “I’m glad we existed together,” I think of how love doesn’t always get a forever, but it does get an impact.

Because we existed.

We built something real in a world that feels temporary.

We created memories strong enough to light up that final seven minutes, over and over again.

And if that’s all we ever had, it’s still everything.

Gratitude for the Time We Shared

I’m learning that healing doesn’t mean forgetting.

It means holding gratitude and grief in the same hand and letting both exist without apology.

James Butts’ quote reminded me that even though I lost my husband far too soon, I also got to exist beside him in this moment of time, and that’s something not even death can take away.