IN MY NATURE: Detaching | Traditions | Expansion + Contraction

BGCL Newsletter

Re: Becoming Detached

Hey friend,

Since we are friends, I was wondering: how’s your relationship with your family? Do you enjoy spending time together? Are you able to have difficult conversations with them?

I ask because I need to know.

Like many of my friends in our 30s/40s, I am pushing up against the pressure and expectations of familial roles. Sometimes being with my family feels like a time warp into the twilight zone of my adolescence. Even though we have grown into separate people, our collective energy forces us to recall dysfunctional behaviors. We see each other and snap back into dated but familiar versions of ourselves.

As I talk with friends, I find that each of us is going through something very specific and personal, yet so universal. Most of us are seeking ways to love and support our families but from a distance that makes sense for us. We want to keep the relationships and ensure there is mutual respect.

This is the complex work of becoming detached.

To do this, we are looking for more productive ways to be with family, ways that honor our growth as individuals. Peeling away from an old role or identity is something we go through over and over again in our lifetimes. It’s a necessary part of understanding ourselves, but it is a painful and uncomfortable space to be in.

Detaching from a former version of yourself can happen a lot of different ways:

• Questioning expectations and assumptions about how our families have operated.

• Stepping outside of our prescribed familial roles.

• Rewriting outdated stories we tell about ourselves.

For me, it is the work of untangling feelings, laying to rest past resentments, and re-establishing accountability.

In general, it’s not easy to pull away from family roles and expectations, but it’s sometimes the healthiest option. None of this work is easy, fast, or pain-free. Quite the opposite. But I have noticed it does get easier each time. And slowly breaking free from an old, broken identity is a heavy weight to shed.

Thanks for becoming with me and reply with your best wisdom on becoming detached.

Stay curious, be kind, and take care,

Hillarie

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New Traditions for Christmas

Christmas has never really been my thing. For one, the spirit of the season seems so out of alignment with the modern consumerist take on the holiday. And growing up, the season was marked by financial strain and unspoken expectations of what the holiday should be. 

I always wondered if it could be different. If the holiday could feel purposeful and intentional rather than like a list of checkboxes and heartbreaks.

So, this is my third year experimenting with Christmas traditions in my home.

• The first year, I got no tree.

• Last year, I bought a 3’ table tree at the grocery store on Christmas Eve.

• This year, fearing I would cancel Christmas altogether, my husband (a Jewish man who has never celebrated Christmas) purchased our first real tree.

The tree is beautiful, and each night I sit in my living room, staring at it. Thinking of the beautiful simplicity. Pondering ways to enjoy this time of the year differently.

Here are a few things I am doing to shake things up this year:

1. Unwrapped gifts: Sitting under my tree right now is a pair of blue rubber rain boots, covered in construction vehicles. They are a highly anticipated gift for my son, and right now, they are serving as a conversation piece. When he sees them, we get to talk about why we give and receive gifts. And it also gives me a chance to reiterate that gifts are just a small way we show love.

2. Planting bulbs on Christmas: instead of cooking a meal or running around to parties, I have decided to dedicate the day to being in nature, planting bulbs for the spring. Something about being in nature, working with the land, feels like a great way to find purpose and meaning.

3. Reusable packaging: I am protesting wrapping paper, mostly because I don’t have the time or patience for it. Instead, I am using cloth bags and boxes that I have collected over the year. While the reveal is less exciting, it’s nice to use what we have on hand and save some time in the process.

Small steps, but these are the changes that can bring meaning and enjoyment to the season. May your Christmas traditions, new and old, bring you joy.

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2021: A Year of Expansion and Contraction

What a year it has been, y’all. It was a year of whiplash. Highs and lows of normal life, compounded by the strangeness of these times. It was overflowing joy and deep, agonizing grief of all we have lost.

2021 was not the antidote to 2020 as many of us had hoped.

In many ways, my world got even smaller this year after moving out of the city and working exclusively from home. The pool of people I see on a daily basis is, on average, is less than a dozen. After having a second kiddo, I also have less time to do other things. The ongoing pandemic resulted in canceling a few trips that were planned. And my parents sold my childhood home and moved, leaving my main connection to South Dakota.

My world has also expanded through deliberate and intentional connection. Through learning to love the outdoors, I have made new friends and connections online. This pursuit has added a new dimension of meaning to my life. In my work, I have become more available to people for collaborating on new ideas and getting feedback in ways that I had not previously. And I’m constantly learning about the world through my kids.

The trade-offs are not easy and often do not feel good at first.

But they are helping me to reset my expectations for a changing world. We have to look for ways to expand our lives, even when it feels like so much has been lost.