It can be tough
Holidays can be very sad.
When you are facing a day that holds special memories and certain expectations, this time of year can be more difficult than happy.
Is it best to run away from the festivities and bury your hurt or to reinvent your holiday and those deeply held expectations.
Forever the optimist, I think things will change. That I will suddenly get to share the Christmas stockings I have lovingly made for my children and grandchildren. So, do I take the stitching out of each sock and see if someone else would like them. I have been thinking about that alot lately. It was maybe silly of me to think it was a good idea. I feel like they belong to the people I made them for, but I really don't feel right doing it without permission since I made them so specifically for each recipient. But will they ever mean anything to my loved one. I guess I should have stopped at my own husband and children. Then I wouldn't have these 10 christmas stockings that remain flat and unfilled on Christmas morning.
I think I am going to ask M....
Is my creativity something that makes someone else feel inadequate? I have always admired my Mom's ability to create. Her Christmas decorations....the Snowman with steel wool as eyebrows; or her wonderful little imaginative scenes as centerpieces; and of course her putting paint to canvas and creating peices of artwork to save for a lifetime. Maybe like cooking, it is something I watched her do all my growing up years so the need to create and express myself in the same way has always been ingrained. I also think I appreciate that ability in those around me too. For the holidays or in the kitchen or in the yard.... I was surrounded by that need to create. One of my stockings which I am still finishing.... but has J's name on it already....was made from the 2 wool fabrics that my Mom made one of my favorite dresses from. I have used wool from my skirts, my sister-in-law's skirts, friend's skirts and from skirts picked up at Goodwill. It has been a labor of love. But it carried an expectation of a different relationship with my son's children. A relationship that has not happened. I will think about what I want to do with my stockings. It is silly to keep pining for an outcome that is not going to happen. And I don't want to be bitter towards these children that I believe need me and maybe at least one of them will come back into my life at a later time. None of this is their doing.
As I said, the Thanksgiving dinner with the table groaning with food and your children's and grandchildren's happy faces sitting around the table is not in my immediate future. Neither of my daughters will be making the trip home again this year. I am very appreciative and happy that my brother is sharing his family with us this holiday. I love all of them very much and look forward to laughter and chatter around the dining room table on Thursday. And very appreciative of my good friends Ray and Karen who enveloped us into their family for this holiday in 2010 when we were also on our own.
Christmas is another story and I am working hard to lower my expectations, even as gifts bought through the year sit up in my attic room awaiting the holiday. Plus.... why go shopping when I see things that I would buy if I just knew whether I would be given in time with my son and his family for Christmas.
Like I say, Holidays can be tough and I know many who have much bigger pain to deal with as they approach these holidays with losses that I cannot imagine. Friends who are seeing their first Christmas without a beloved husband or a close friend.
I saw this outcome approaching and that is why I let M & D stay in the house even though they were disrespectful, unhelpful, and lacked basic courtesy. I felt that at least the kids knew we were here and that we loved them. This is no surprise. Just very sad and a loss that I need to grieve over. One wonders what we should have done. Should we have denied M the help? Should we have left them out of the house when they left the first time? Was it like "suicide by cop?" Did M push us to do his dirty work?
Where is the person I saw growing and developing in my son when he was my much loved child? Is he gone? Why?
Oh well. I can ponder that to death and it will do me no good. I am trying to keep contact, even very slight, so he knows I am still here and still love the person I believe he is deep down. And I am trying to let go again.
Enough venting for now..... I think I feel better.