Life has been a little rough for us in the last year or so. In a lot of ways, things are harder than they have ever been. We are currently living in a two bedroom apartment where the kids each have a room and Dan and I sleep on a bed in the living room. We live in the cheapest available apartments in town and we still had to get my ex-husband to co-sign so we could live here. We don't have a car, but we still owe money for the one that doesn't run. Our loaner car takes ten bucks every day or two in gas to get around town. Dan and I each own one pair of jeans, but Dan can't find his.
In other ways, things are a ton better than this time last year. We are paying the bills. There is almost nothing left over, but we are not in danger of eviction. We are juggling disconnect notices, but so far we are keeping up. We live in a town with a bus system that takes us almost everywhere we need to go and we do have a loaner car. We may have to push the utilities envelope a little further, but we will probably be able to see my family for Thanksgiving.
I have my good days and my bad days when it comes to depression, but I have learned of a local place where I might be able to get free therapy. Beyond that, in the past year, I have been to that point where I fully and truly believed that my family would be better off without me. I still struggle, but I know that I am valued and I am loved and I am not alone. I know that things will be hard, but I have a husband who supports me, beautiful kids who love me, a church family like I had never imagined before, an extended family that are tight even over distance and friends who are there for me.
So why is the whole season of watching the homes around us light up so damn hard? I just realized that our tree and all of our decorations were in the storage shed that we couldn't keep paying for. They were all lost. We picked out new ornaments for each member of the family every year. Sometimes they were fifteen dollar Hallmark ornaments, and sometimes they were from the dollar store. One year we bought cardboard stars and painted them ourselves. Payton's very first ornament was there. It was a brass teddy bear that Aaron and I picked out together and we had his name and birth date engraved in it. His second ornament was a little cross-stitched thing that I made for him when he was two. It was just Payton and I and money was tight but I bought a little kit thing so he could still have an ornament. There was this book about the nativity story. There were six pages and each page had a cardboard ornament that we could hang up after we read the story. Ash had a Barbie ballerina, probably from the nutcracker and an angel that she had her Grandma Barbie buy for her birthday from Everything But Ice, which is gone now.
All of these ornaments had great memories attached. But they are just things. I still have my kids. We can make more memories. What is the issue? This is not really what Christmas is all about. What is my problem?
I try to be positive in my social networking, but I posted my conundrum on facebook:
Trying to decide if I'm more frustrated to realize we no longer have Christmas decorations, or that there is no place to put a tree if we had one. *sigh*
I got some cheap and creative ideas to decorate along with an offer for a tree. One person added, "Enjoy your family." That's when it hit me. I don't even know if I can do that.
Right now, we are signed up to be adopted for Christmas gifts so maybe we can all get some new warm clothes. I saw the cutest Mickey Mouse stocking hat thing at Walgreen's with two pom poms on top to be Mickey's ears. It was only eight bucks, but we still can't buy it for Livi. Christmas dinner will be whatever I can get close to free with my coupons. Free hot dogs at the gas station around the corner today were a lifesaver. I really thought this was the cause of my melancholy until I read that one comment that was tagged onto the end, almost as an after thought. "Enjoy your family."
I have had the privilege to help raise five children through various parts of their lives. Payton's been mine for almost 13 years now, close to 14 years if you count gestation. Livi's been mine for almost five years. I helped raise Ash from the time she was three until she was nine, and then we still had every other weekend and over the summers. We aren't going to get to take her to Oklahoma with us, and we may not be able to go get her for Thanksgiving weekend if we got to Oklahoma. We may not see her again before the end of the year. Saanna lived with us for three and a half years. She picked out an "our first year" ornament the first year she was with us. :) As long as we get to Oklahoma, we should see her for Thanksgiving. Ash's half brother, Avian, lived with us for a year and a half. I don't even see him once a year for long enough to say hello. We had the Hallmark ornament of Harry Potter with the invisibility cloak that Avian picked out in storage. We also had this little gingerbread man that Avian had decorated that year we went to Dan's Grandma's for Christmas. It has a space cut out and we had Avian's picture in it. He was eight. That was the year he called 911 from the Holiday Inn. lol
Enjoy the family. Once you take part in raising a child, they are yours. I know that Nana never thought of me as a mom and I doubt that Avian really thinks of me at all anymore. But in my heart, I have helped raise five kids and they are all mine. Sure, I share them with other people, but they are still my kids. There are four babies, who may have names in heaven, that I never got to know. Of the nine kids in my life, I know I will see Livi and Payton. I may see Nana and Ash, or I may not see either of them. I won't even have a glimpse of Avian, most likely.
I tell the kids all the time, you can't be sad that you miss people. You have to be glad for the people who are with you or you'll always be sad for someone who is not there. I love Dan, Livi and Payton to infinity and beyond. I am immeasurably grateful that I have them every day. I am so scared that we are going to lose Ashlynn as completely as I have lost Avian. The pain of losing Avian has just crashed down on me again this year. I didn't even realize the hurt was still there. I thought I was past it. I thought I had dealt with the miscarriages. I thought that since Nana has grown up and is a mama and that we talk, the pain of her abrupt leave from our home was healed. It's all still there.
Ouch. . .
I don't know if this will help me get back on track to realize where all this hurt is coming from. I hope so. I know that I'm working hard to not take for granted those people that I do have around me because you never know what is going to happen next. I'm hoping that focusing on those I have with me will help to ease the loss of those who aren't. God, please help me with that. I'm going to need it. Amen.
