A Precious Reward

Setting the table for four on Christmas Day, I decided to use my parent's dishes, mine now since they are gone. Growing up, my family ate every Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner on these "good" dishes.

I got four plates down and started setting the table.  Holding that sweet 1960s plate, I was transported back, back to the sounds of the table, smells, my father's voice, the bowls including that canned cranberry, mother's sweet tea, back through a tunnel of time to my mother's house. When I realized I was in 2012 preparing a meal alone, I felt a deep sense of gratitude for those memories, for that childhood, for this day.

It occurred to me what progress that way. A corner turned.

It was a moment of reward for the last year and a half processing the fact that I have no family of origin. A few cousins I rarely hear from. A nephew, a relationship young for him to know me long. Processing that no one knows me before the age of 14. Feeling alone. Feeling pitiful. But on Christmas day 2012, I felt grateful for what I had. And still have, those precious times I can float back to...

Christmas In My Nest

Not a lot.

Just enough.

Christmas 2011.

Hope yours is easy.

Hope mine isn't blue.

Merry Christmas to you.

Many Good Things

Hmmmmm. Tired. Wrung out. Had been feeling good but kinda tanked after Thanksgiving. Feeling sad and neglected. I had to finalize a banking situation with my mothers account. Do you have any idea how long it takes to bury someone? They are gone but so much stuff remains. I could donate all her clothes, but that closet still smells like her. I can go in there and just smell deeply. Sometimes it nauseates me because she is gone. Mostly it smells good. Good and sad.

So...I left the last entry just before Glitter Market. I was feeling great, boards behind me, the best people in front of me...



Charlotte Perez

Charlotte Perez Originals

What a joy to be with my friends, inspired by their talent.

Heather Ales of Soldering Fame



Holly Abston

Donna Layton

It just was beyond a dream.



Premier Paper Artist Jackie Peters

I appreciate the support so much.



Jemellia Hilfiger

Jemellia's off-spring who made me cry she is so cute

Thanksgiving was so good. I knew I had to get out of town. I spent forty seven thanksgivings with me mother and I knew I would mope around the house without her. We went to my daughter's (my husband's daughter) near Dallas and had a great day. She has two little boys, 3 and 1 and everything is better with little boys in it. Everything.

The following weekend my daughter and I decorated the Christmas tree. Opening up those same old ornaments always brings melancholy. With mother gone, I struggled, struggled to be present and realize this time next year, my daughter will have moved to college. Oh my dear friends, such a lovely thing to raise this child. She is everything to me and is sweet, and smart and funny. Another girl who is going to go. I realize I have been in a hammock suspended between two lives, my mother on one side, her life,  prolonged illness and death, which goes on and on.



Spencer whom always waits...

On the other side I have my adorable girl, awaiting college acceptances, wondering where she will land. I have been swinging between these two, happily so, sadly so, emerged in them and all that implies. All this means I will have my own life once again. My future is out there. Thank god I can keep busy with my hands. I can teach again and go back to the medical world. There is some good news to share. I passed my recertification boards required to maintain my national licensure.

Things are really good in my abundant life.

It's just that it doesn't always feel so great.

Thank you my friends. I feel such connection here with you. You save me a little everyday. I hope you feel some of that back. Because what would be the point otherwise?

Around Here

Oh Christmas. You have to fight for Christmas.

Fight crowds.

Fight impulses.

Fight over-spending.

Fight demons.

Fight memories.

Fight resentment.

Or at least I always have.

My brother died at Christmas. We have fought to have Christmas most years since. Sadness. memories, bad ones. Last year Christmas was so dark.

Good lord, are you still even reading this?

I was wrapping gifts last night. I was flooded with Christmases from so long ago. The sweet Christmases when I was a child and all the kids were there. All four of us. Before addiciton and depression took my brother and sister away. But as I loaded boxes, folded tissue paper, removed prices, dispensed tape, they were just memories. They did not yoke. They did not tie a concrete block around my ankle and throw me off the deep end. They did not tie me to empty graves. They were just feelings.

Melancholy? Yes. Edge of depression? No.

Wow. Is this what "normal" people feel? Just memories and love? Not fear and loathing? I think I grew up this year. I have been present with this Christmas. I have not been a grinch. I have done all the tasks I always do but they did not feel like a burden. For the first year EVER.

This year has brought such fatigue, pain, anger and love. A grand miracle came this year, some smaller miracles as well. Can a miracle be small? A miracle can be large. That is for sure. I had one of those. I haven't shared it yet. But the timing was miracluous which is redundant. A birth. A saviour in a sense.

I look forward to my little family this year. My brother here with me. Mother. My husband and daughter. The other daughters seen and to be seen. All in order just for now.

And I feel grateful. I receive these gifts.

I fought for them and I am going to enjoy them.

Let's have a cup of hot chocolate, sit with your holiday lights.

Be.

I will Be.

Wrapped

That beautiful Scout is my oldest brother. He would go on to grow up and do all the things the kids did in the 50s. He would finish high school. Get drafted. Go to Vietnam. He would return and head off to school, his military haircut drawing war protesters to spit on him on an American college campus. He would struggle through the next 10 or so years of his life until he couldn't any more.

This year the holidays have been quite blue here. Earlier, I was so sick with the flu I had to cancel what may very well be my mother's last Thanksgiving. While slowly recovering I pushed through caring for my mother and tryed to put together a great birthday party for my daughter. The only Christmas decorating I could manage was the tree. Not even a wreath. I kind of cared but not really.

Friday a week ago my mother had declined so that we took her to the hospital via the emergency department. A blur of highs and lows followed. After a weight loss of over 25 pounds this year, we finally got a diagnosis, a stack of prescriptions and she was kicked out on Christmas Eve in a blizzard. My daughter did not make it home from her grandparents until 8 pm on Christmas Day. The few gifts we had this year remain under the tree this morning, wrapped.

There was a Christmas with wrapped presents under the tree on the 26th many years ago when I was my own daughter's adolescent age. We waited for my brother to come home. We had not heard from him. A call from the coroner's office told the story that he had been in the morgue for ten days. Unclaimed bodies are targeted for disposal at day 10, but our wonderful coroner looked at my brother and said "this boy has a family." He took it upon himself to call to ensure we had been notified. Of course we hadn't. We had been waiting for him. An Oklahoma City police officer, at the end of his shift 10 days prior, marked that he had come to our house and notified us. He simply did not. The apology which came a couple of weeks later didn't help much.

So here I am with gifts under the tree. Of course we are all alive this year. I know to be grateful about that. But actually I feel empty, hollow. My mother lives with me now. I have much to do physically and emotionally in the coming months. Right now I am not sure how I will muster the strength for it all. But I have done it before. We all have. Somehow you keep waking up, plowing forward, through the pudding that is exhaustion. Somehow another meal. Another load of laundry. A trip to the grocery store all the while screaming inside "I can't, I don't want to" and yet doing it anyway.

I can't tell this story out loud. I also can't post a pretty picture of the holiday. This is the blue truth today.

Curly Girly

The last tree topper for ya'. This girl has red hair, a little lighter than the last one and her hair is a wee bit curly!

Look at her balls! So sweet. I can get her to you before Christmas. She will make a great gift.

Find her on eBay.

Annie Tree Top

Hi ya'll. I will be listing little handmade tree topper dolls each day this week on eBay. With a low starting bid and no reserve, I hope for my little girls to go to good loving homes. You can find this first little ginger-haired girl here.

Comments for my pillow give away close tomorrow at my bedtime! Leave a comment here.