(Usual disclaimer: I’m not a doctor, psychotherapist or anything like that. If you need professional help, then seek it.)

I’m writing this in late November, when it begins to approach a… weird time of year.

Maybe you like all the festive cheer that’s about to bloom around you.

Maybe you don’t.

Or maybe it’s a bittersweet time for you. All the joy and happiness in the air reminds you of what you once had but no longer do.

It’s not unique to the Christmas period, of course. You can lose anyone in any season. But maybe thinking about how many folks are about to struggle has got me thinking about this.

This might describe you:

There was a period in your life when you were happy, connected or surrounded by love. It wasn’t perfect, but it was nice. Then that time ended.

We could be talking about so many things here – losing a loved one, losing a marriage, losing a pet, losing your job, losing custody, losing your health, losing your reputation, losing a relationship…

The point is that things were good in some way, then it ended.

You might have been happy for decades – happy for so long that you forgot how to be unhappy until you were forced to.

Or maybe it was all much faster, but no less intense for it.

The good times ended with a bad change. When you think of that change, does it make you angry? Maybe someone betrayed you or the system treated you unfairly. Does it make you sad for what you’ve lost? Does it scare you? You had your future planned and now it’s all so uncertain. What about guilt, regret or just a sharp, gnawing ache where some piece of you is now missing?

Probably most of that, all at once.

That’s a lot of darkness and bitterness, coming at the end of such a happy – or happier at least – story.

And you can’t see through this darkness and bitterness. Whenever you try to bring up the happier memories, your mind snaps back to the harsh ending.

Of course you do.

Most folks see time as a line. There’s the past on one side and the future on another.

Take a moment to think about the last and next six months.

For many folks, the past is to the left and the future is on the right. This can make it hard to talk about yourself – unless you’re good at zooming in, it’s hard to see the details.

Others see the future stretching out ahead of them and the past behind them. This makes it easy to move on, for better or worse, because your history is out of sight.

There are more exotic shapes. You might see time as a spiral – that is, a line that curves around towards itself. This can make every July near June and August, but also the July before and after it. Seeing time like this makes it more likely that your personality changes with the seasons.

And there are more exotic ways of thinking about time. Time can bubble up to the sky. It can weigh you down or drag you forward. It can jump, jar and skid.

But for most of us, most of the time, it’s a line.

No wonder you struggle to remember the good times you’ve lost. No matter how big and bright those memories are, they’re on the other side of the dark, bitter ending.

One bad month can obscure four beautiful decades simply by being closer to you on the timeline.

But time – as we remember it – isn’t a line. Think about what happened to you yesterday – at least five things that stood out for you. Do they all arrive in sequential order, neat or organised? Or do they float in your psyche like a cloud? Can you think of the earliest and latest memories at the same moment?

Easily, right?

So you can see memories that are on the other side of other memories. You might just be not used to doing it like this.

What I’m about to get you to do will require some focus. Your mind is going to want to slip to the dark and bitter ending. Don’t let it.

Here’s how it works.

Think back to a memory from the happier times. Instead of trying to look straight back along the line of your past, come at the memory from an angle. Crane your neck, spiral your past, go back and relive it – whatever it takes to get back into the happier memory and stay there.

Go back to when the dark and bitter stuff hasn’t happened yet.

You’ll know when it works because you can’t mistake it. There’ll be some quality to the memory you’ve forgotten about. It can be the way a laugh sounds, a fragrance, a turn of phrase or simply how you feel in this moment back then.

Closure is a myth. But this, right here, is the feeling people mean when they talk about it. It’s this bittersweet reconnection with something you lost.

And now it’s back – if it ever left at all.

You can’t change what happened but you can keep from letting one small detail in the story change how every moment in it feels.

Return fully to the present. Breathe, laugh, cry, drink some water – if your body needs something from you now, it’ll let you know.

And if you got anything from this, then let me know. You can contact me in all the usual ways and I’d enjoy hearing from you.