Why last Thanksgiving caused three days of empath hangover --and I don't regret it.

what Old Man Grief, dusk's faeries, and winter's bone offer to sensitive souls

I’m sitting in my sauna, fully clothed— complete with ski cap still on my head, shivering.

My morning dog walk left me bone-cold. The fog is thick enough that I couldn’t see across the small lake. Last week’s wind took the last of the leaves, the ones that had been holding on with their final burst of orange and red and gold. Now, they’re gone.

This morning, everything is grey: the sky, the ground, the tree trunks, and the air itself is just. . . grey.

This happens every year. I relish in the liminal space that is autumn, where everything feels magickal. After months of stifling heat, the air crisps enough to make my morning walks a clip faster. The trees give us this amazing rainbow of brilliant color, and this year we were even graced with an other-worldly display of northern lights. This time of year, those perfect dusk moments the light slants just right where I swear I can see faeries dancing in the periphery. The veil between worlds is so thin that I that dreams and fantasies feel almost touchable.

But then boom, a gust of wind comes and whisks it all away, and I wake up one morning to. . . grey.

The door to that liminal space has closed.

Winter isn’t just coming anymore. . . winter has arrived.

Last Thanksgiving

Last year, I was able to distract myself from the sudden shift to winter with the bustle of Thanksgiving plans. That bone-cold greyness of winter hit me later than usual. Not because of the weather outside, but because of what happened at my dining room table.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and yet every year, it seems to let me down— BIG TIME.

2024 was no exception.

We got super excited because Sister Hobbit had decided to come stay with us for the holidays. Arriving just days before Thanksgiving. His cousin came over with her kids, her siblings, and her dad. I set the dining room table with my grandmother’s china and crystal, glowing under the stained glass light of the chandelier.

Hobbit’s family took over my kitchen and made a feast. I didn’t have to cook. I got to just show up and enjoy.

It was everything I thought I wanted.

And for most of the day, it was utterly fabulous. Right down to hog-pile of a family group hug.

But then, almost as suddenly as the liminal space of autumn shifts into the grey-cold of winter, my energy shifted that night, and I was instantly just DONE.

Somewhere between dessert and coffee, I noticed the tension. Sister Hobbit and their neurodivergent cousin, some kind of underlying thing I couldn’t name but could definitely feel. My nervous system was processing everyone’s emotions on top of the noise and the chaos and the overstimulation.

Plus, I hadn’t eaten much, so I was suffering a bit of the low-blood-sugar hangries. I know, I’m the weirdo who didn’t each much at Thanksgiving dinner. But, to be fair, I hadn’t cooked any of it. My body prefers organic, homegrown, simple whole ingredients, and our guests had served a number of made-from-a-box type dishes.

“I’m done,” I squeezed Hobbit’s knee under the table as I whispered in his ear. He heard me, and for a moment we both just sat there taking in the too much of it all together.

Too many humans. Too many voices talking over each other. Too many family dynamics I hadn’t been raised to understand. I felt like the outsider in my own home, watching people navigate tensions and inside jokes and unspoken histories that had nothing to do with me.

That when he arrived. Grief in his heavy charcoal hooded cloak pulled up the chair next to me and grabbed my hand with his cold gnarly-knuckled fingers. I haven’t had a Thanksgiving dinner with my family since the year I divorced and my family decided to stop celebrating. I wouldn’t have inside jokes and unspoken histories with my family for Thanksgiving again. Grief pulled off his hood and looked me right in the eye, reminding me what Christmas is, a day to remember saying goodbye to Grandma on her deathbed in 2007.

Then, just like that, I stood up.

“Okay, I’m done. I love you all, but it’s time to go home now.”

I spent the next hour cleaning my kitchen, scrubbing dishes, putting my grandmother’s china back in the cabinet, wondering why I thought any of this was a good idea in the first place.

“Because of this,” Hobbit said, showing me the group-hug photo on his phone.

Genuine joy on everyone’s faces.

“It was worth it,” he said.

The Pattern

It was worth it for Hobbit. My grandmother was proud as I was the hostess she modeled for me to be, and everyone had a fabulous time, with photo proof that Hobbit’s family gathered and loved each other and made memories.

It cost me three days to recover.

When Grief shows up to remind me what my nervous system already knew—winter has arrived, and I’d filled my house with noise instead of honoring the quiet I need.

Winter asks us to turn inward, to hibernate and process the grief we’ve been carrying—the losses, the memories, the anniversaries our bodies remember even when our minds try to forget.

People who aren’t as sensitive as me do this by celebrating the holidays together. Being loud, boisterous, materialistic, and over-stuffing themselves with forbidden foods.

But for me, my sensitivity demands a different kind of approach. Winter asks me to get quiet so I can hear what my sensitive souls actually need.

For my entire life, I have shown up for the boisterous holidays like a “normal” and processed the feelz quietly on my own in stolen moments between the hustle of the season. During my morning walks, and the recover from cold sauna-sits afterwards, on my yoga mat upon waking and before sleeping, and with my ancestor shrine while journaling and listening to a guided relaxation.

I’ve processed these feelz alone. . . for far too long.

We sensitive souls learned early that white-knuckling through the hard seasons by ourselves is safer than depending on others (the “normals”) to understand. So we build our rituals and practices in our silent sacred spaces, so that we can survive winter on our own.

This year I’m trying something different.

We are having Thanksgiving dinner, just the two of us.

And, this year, every Sunday between now and Christmas, I’m gathering with other gentle souls who understand what the grey morning asks. Who know that Grief isn’t something to fix or avoid, but something to sit with and process together. Who are ready to honor winter’s invitation to turn inward—not alone, but in community.