All the way up until high school my birthdays, December 7th, were some of the best memories of my life. It was a day where all of the most important people in my life would be there and have a great time. The best birthday party came when I was turning 12 and everyone was there. All of my friends came over for dinner and then we got to go to a 10 oclock movie. Once the movie was over, we went to Steak and Shake for Milkshakes. This is where my mom, Kelly, had one of her famous laughing attacks. For those who didn’t know my mom these laughing attack last about 20 to 30 minutes and they are absolutely uncontrollable. You can imagine what a group of 12 years old with parents that are laughing until they fall out of their chairs looks like in a Steak and Shake past midnight. My birthdays were always filled with laughter and love such as the night as I just described. This started off the wonderful month of December for me, and this month was filled with family, baseball and presents. This is where I got to spend the most time with my mom throughout the year. She saved up all of her time off and bonus money to spend on me. Excuse my language, but I have to emphasize that I was so fucking lucky to have her in my life and I didn’t appreciate it nearly enough. If you know me or read any of my previous blogs, you know that my mom passed away back when I was in college. This is where December turned into a completely different meaning for me, and I want to discuss how I dealt with it at first. 

I deal with this pain very differently than most people and most social norms do not apply to when it comes to how I experience this pain. I get questions randomly that I do not answer truthful in person because they sound terrible and insensitive coming out of my mouth. The first question would be, “Do you still think about your mom everyday?”. I say yes but honestly the answer is no. When I get faced with this question I feel horrible. Should I think about my mom everyday? Am I a bad person for not thinking about my mom everyday? I don’t think I am, but I feel as if people would think I am if I answered honestly. The next is more of just a statement, but I don’t remember the exact day that my mom died. Again, how horrible does it sound reading this? It’s the day my mom died and I could not tell you when it was. This is an example of how I deal with pain. I remember thinking to myself soon after she passed away that I HAVE to remember all of the great memories we had and not how the last month of her life unfolded. Why do I want to feel a great amount of pain on the same day every year for the rest of my life? I am really good at just throwing emotion deep down inside. Is this good? No. All the emotion comes out at once and it’s usually in December. I choose to remember my mother for all the good that she brought to this planet but this also just makes me realize how much I miss her. She brought relentless love to me during this time of the year and all of a sudden it was just gone. It was a huge change to my life and still is today. This is my way of making a true statement even more real, everyone handles emotions in different ways. The next step is to figure out how to handle these emotions.

I struggled for many Decembers after her passing and never truly understood why. Taking the look inward was one of the hardest tasks I’ve had to do and it wasn’t until I was left alone with my thoughts that I found this freedom. It is so hard to find a place that you are left alone with your thoughts in today’s world but I was lucky enough to find one. I was put in the situation of working for amazon to make money over the holidays last year. This is where I found the gift of Audible. I would be spending over 10 hours a day going door to door and had tons of time to listen to books. Reading or listening to books was the missing piece to figuring out who I was as a person. Anxiety is so prevalent in today’s world because it’s tougher than ever to get away from your thoughts. Through discovering audible I found why reading is such an important part of life. It helps you leave your constant thoughts and devote all your thoughts to the task at hand. Once having a clearer mind during the toughest time of the year, I realized I had to work hard to allow myself to feel emotions. I’ve talked about how my wife has helped me in the previous blogs but this year she did something that really made me turn the corner for good. The video is 6 minutes long and you don’t need to watch it all but the work my wife put into this means the world to me. 

This is my unconventional path to deal with a huge emotional issue in my life. I hope that you can read this and understand how diverse emotions can be. Culture is everything when it comes to being able to deal with your issues. I want to create a culture that it is okay to speak your feelings at any time. To wrap up this talk I will try and put how I was able to cope with my lose. 

1. Realize you have a problem
2. Identify the problem
3. Talk about the problem
4. Create a support group
5. Find your “getaway’
6. Tackle the issue 

I hope this helps and if you want to talk more about how I hand my problems or if you need help with yours, call me, text me, email me, or DM me! I’m always here to help.