Back in my twenties my body would seize up with loneliness at Christmas. I would feel a slow ache rising up my bones from about mid-October and by early December it would have nested into each joint like lichen into the cracks of an old house. In my early thirties I discovered the cure for this particular brand of arthritis was a packed social calendar and embracing the romance of the season, without holding onto hope for any actual romance of course. I became an expert at getting through Christmas without feeling lonely or wistful or worthless, or any other Bridge Jones-esque cliche.
But if you are feeling those things then fear not! Like the proverbial Angel Gabriel, I come with glad tidings. Over the years I have found a way to root out that damn loneliness the second you feel its creep. And, I’m going to share it with you here.
(Side note, I rewatched the original Bridget Jones film the other day and Renee Zellweger is a delight. Yes, it’s completely bonkers about weight and marriage but from the safety of 2022 it’s possible to view it as a slightly hornier Pride and Prejudice, rather than a horror film more violent than Saw. I’d definitely add it to the list for potential Boxing Day viewing).
It could be easy to dismiss loneliness at Christmas as something only felt by single people but I know this isn’t true. Growing up I watched my mother try and inject the chaotic joy of her childhood Christmases - up North with three sisters and a minimum of twenty assorted relatives for lunch - into our family-of-four Christmas in Kent. As far as I was concerned, she did a great job of it. But I don’t think it ever really felt the same for her.
During the pandemic I spent Christmas with a man who felt it was the worst day of the year. I could feel him try to shake off the humbug for my sake but he never quite made it. And by 4pm I’d be sat on the sofa alone, wondering whether it was normal to feel lonely in a relationship.
And while most of my married-with-children friends are still at the point where the kids believe in Santa and the husband cooks the turkey, this year I’ve started to notice a slight crumbling at the edges. A few divorcees have started mentioning the holiday they will take when the kids are with their dad. And, quieter still, a few married friends admit that something has gone a bit wrong this year. That Christmas feels like a lot of work for not a lot of appreciation - that they feel lonely.
Whatever your status this Christmas, I can tell you now that nothing will cure a fit of the advent blues like a crone.
If you’re going to take the dictionary definition of a crone - an ugly and mean old woman - then I can see that this doesn’t seem too appealing. But I’m talking about the crone in her most fashionable incarnation - as an archetype.
The crone archetype sees older women as the embodiment of wisdom, intuition and inner knowing. The light guiding us through transitions in life and helping us bring about transformation. Looked at through this lens, at little bit of crone energy feels just the thing to cast off the embarrassment of the Christmas party and step into the new year with a fresh attitude.
Also, crones are having a moment. In a recent interview with Salon.com, veteran actress Judith Light talked about embracing her “crone years”.
“I don’t hold it as ageing, I hold it as gaining wisdom. If I’m still the same as I was yesterday, then I’m not really learning anything.”
Meanwhile, Sharon Blackie - bestselling author of If Women Rose Rooted - this year released a new book called, Hagitude. Ostensibly about the second half of life, Hagitude unearths lost folklore centred around crones and with it finds the lessons that all of us need to learn. And if you can’ t learn these lessons from the book, then Blackie has also released a course taking you all the way through to death with a practical mysticism that is fundamentally crone-like.
And winter is the perfect time to spend with the crones. For a start, the key criteria for being a crone is being in the winter of your life. Enthusiastic spring and energetic summer are easy but find a woman who has understood the endings only faced in autumn. Or one who wakes up each morning and breathes the mist of her own mortality onto the mirror like a wintery fog on the Thames. These are the woman who know the impermanence and unimportance of festive loneliness. These women, who sit with themselves because everyone else has gone, have no truck with feeling sad because you’re decorating a tree alone.
I recently sat in a circle of women older than me. I listened as they asked questions I consider myself too worldly-wise to bother with but also have no answers for. They debated god, held each other as they cried tears of grief and sang an ode to the solstice, reminding me that the darkest day is also the shortest. And at the end they hummed a quiet prayer of thanks to the goddess and toasted to their own fabulousness. I toasted with them - to my fabulousness and to theirs - and thought once again how lucky I will be to end up an old crone. An old crone is all the things I aspire to be: wise, funny and never lonely because she always has herself.
Sit long enough with a crone and they’ll show you their true secrets. They’ll read you the poetry that breaks and heals your heart all at once. They’ll play you the songs that tell stories of an age when women’s magic so frightened men that they had to curtail it. They’ll remind you of the power that sits within all women, regardless of our age or beauty. And that is the Christmas miracle that everyone needs.
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Thank you for sharing Harriet this was an interesting read and am sure many will be gain from reading this.