Here we are: it’s February again. This is from a 2016 calendar, but the dates line up - and does it really matter?
My children have birthdays in February. Last year, we hosted a lovely party for them, we had friends in our home, we blew out candles, we sang, we hugged, we laughed, kids played hide and seek in the closets and under the beds. We didn’t give a second thought to how close we were to each other. My dad also has a birthday in February - last year was a big one. We flew to the east coast and celebrated with family and friends. Some people were doing elbow bumps at that point, but one of my kids had a cold and we didn’t even consider isolating her in a room. Instead, she spent most of the party alternately licking my face, falling asleep, and, again, singing and blowing out candles. My sister has a birthday in the beginning of March. Having just been with lots of family, last year she had a quiet get away with fancy food in a fancy restaurant. At the time, of course, we didn’t know that these parties, the flight, the dinner out would be the last ones we would experience for more than a year.
Now it’s February again. There has been a lot of loss this year, there is a long road still to come, and after so many months there is also a bit of light peeking through the gray clouds of pandemic life. And though we’ve celebrated many a birthday over Zoom, these February and early March birthdays will be the last ones to be celebrated on Zoom for a first time. Come April, we’ll start celebrating events virtually for a second year.
In the world of trauma therapy, and therapy in general, anniversaries are a big deal. Traditions exist across cultures to honor anniversaries of both happy and difficult events - the personal, like birthdays, weddings anniversaries, and the deaths of loved ones - and the communal, like religious and national holidays or days of remembrance. Why do cultures create rituals for these anniversaries? Because we remember them, whether or not we consciously intend to. A ritual, a formal anniversary reminds us to pay attention with intention, to be aware of the types of memories that might be impacting us on a February afternoon, in contrast to noticing the azaleas in bloom or the large puddles on the street, both clues which might be too subtle for our busy conscious brains, but may be just enough for our subconscious to react to.
And often while actual memories may be repressed or devalued, strong feelings may still sneak out. So we look for patterns as these patterns can tell us more than we might be able to speak ourselves: do things always feel hard around this time of year? What happened in the past at this time of year? Do you always think about quitting your job in October? What happens then? Do you always start to feel depressed around summer? What happened in July? When we anticipate anniversaries, we can be alert for the kinds of patterns we might fall into and we can be responsive to the emotions and urges that may be driving our behavior. When we don’t anticipate, we might surprise ourselves with our behaviors or the strength of our emotions - and we might surprise others as well.
Even young children, who often surprise us with what they do and don’t remember, will have memories of anniversaries. Amidst all the birthday excitement the seemingly-out-of-the-blue question, “will I have to get a shot when I go to the doctor?” Because with birthdays come check-ups. Or, one of my favorite examples from my own family at Christmas. After hanging up stockings, which moments earlier she hadn’t even remembered the name of, one of my kids recalled, “last year in our stockings Santa left us those rainbow candies and an orange peel.” We later found a picture from the previous Christmas with her stocking contents: M&Ms and a (whole) clementine. Her vocabulary being much more limited the previous year, she didn’t have names for those candies or that fruit, but as soon as she saw that stocking hanging up, she remembered! And she described those memories the best she was able.
As February arrives, we’re about to have a lot of anniversaries of lasts - the last time you went out to eat inside a restaurant with friends, the last time you had people inside your home, the last party you attended in person, the last time you went to a movie theater, the last time you went on an airplane. (They won’t be the same for everyone, of course. We’ve all needed to make different choices, with good reason, this year. Inevitably, though, you will have some version of a “last time.”) We’re also about to have a lot of unanticipated seconds - a second virtual birthday party, a second virtual Passover seder or Easter lunch, a second virtual graduation or moving on ceremony. Last year when we celebrated these occasions over Zoom, we didn’t know it was the first time and we might have thought it was the only time (“next year in person,” we said). Undoubtedly, the recognition of this change will bring up some feelings for each of us, regardless of how accustomed to it we may be at this point or how hopeful we may be starting to feel for the future.
So buckle your seatbelts and get ready to notice what comes up for you. Notice when you (or those around you) are getting angry or feeling sad or maybe even laughing for “no good reason” (there may well be a good reason hiding under the surface), notice when you don’t want to do the thing you’ve been doing every week for the past three months, notice when you feel the urge to hang up on a friend or ignore a text, or, alternatively, when you feel the urge to hear a friend’s voice right away. These feelings and urges are worth paying attention to, no matter if you act on them or not. They may be telling you about what you’re missing, or what you’re remembering.