I typed in so many different titles and still don't know if this is the right one for this entry. Where to begin? I don't really know, as I tried to go to bed, to go to sleep and my mind kept racing once again...this time it began with the holiday letter I had just finished typing before I headed to bed.
My Christmas cards have been done, for over a week or two...as I ordered the photo cards I traditionally send a few weeks back when I found a good coupon/deal. Today I received my first Christmas card in the mail. It made me smile. Not just the big reindeer sticker on the back, nor that it was from a women who use to watch me while my mother was going to graduate school, although that was part of it. It was that warm feeling that I was thought of, that she wanted to send a warm thought my way. I read through the letter, her positive Christian message strong and true just as I remember her years ago. Then, tonight once my kids were finally asleep, I thought I should write my traditional letter.
I actually considered doing this a few weeks back, but was in a rather depressed mood at the time and instead listing off all the positive, fun, happy memories that we had from each month through out this past year, I began listing all the depressing, awful realities that occurred. It has not been an easy year. But tonight, with the illuminated Christmas tree decorated and lighting up the room, I was feeling a bit more upbeat again. So I listed off each month and filled in the spaces with basketball, trips to the pool, fun going to see my sister/taking the kids to the Mall of America, listing off stuff about soccer and Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts and birthday parties....I filled in all the spaces as I always do. I painted the picture once again of a fun, wonderful life that we live in. I saved it for the night and tried to make myself go to bed and sleep.
Laying there, I kept thinking, what is the point of sending that letter out? Is it to prove to others that I am keep my kids entertained, filled with fun opportunities and events. Who am I trying to please by sending it out? My close friends already know about all the stuff in the letter and with technology even not so close friends, via Facebook, know most of them too. I was thinking of my Cousin Derek, who I spoke with at my Grandma's funeral over a year ago, commenting on how glad he was to see my letter last year as he had missed it the year before. Okay, one person who enjoys it. I remember joking to him at the time, if you would have got one the year before, it would have just been too depressing! It's not that this past year was that horrific, I just feel I'm putting on a show, not telling the whole story by typing up and sending out only happy memories. So am I suppose to list off starting the year knowing that not only my engagement was over, so was the relationship the the man I was with. To be followed up by losing hours at work and for a few months appeared to be no longer a job where I could have insurance anymore...to continue on to find out my parents were moving back to town (which in many ways can be a blessing, was also awful news)...to getting the courage to go back and apply for two jobs in my former teaching world and not getting either of them...followed by being brave and entering the dating world again, only to once again learn a lesson in trust, or rather how to get hurt...and continue the year to discover my from former neighbors as well as local police, that my old house, where my children spend 30% of their time, is now being referred to as a drug house, with ex-cons frequenting it and my children being left alone or alone with some of these men for hours, if not spending an excess of hours at the local bar. Then to continue on with indirect threats on my life and more time trying to get a new restraining order against my ex, only to once again lose faith in the court as well as Child Protective Services system in our state. That leads us to the news from my doctor at my annual physical this fall where I was told I had pre-cancerous cells and ended up having a double biopsy to determine if I needed surgery and if I did indeed have ovarian cancer. Yes, this was all during the texts threating my life if I didn't fess up to who my leak in the old neighborhood he currently lives in was. I continued on to discover that my ex husband received a second OWI/DWI and was texting me from a hospital that he was messed up and couldn't take the kids anymore...to two days later saying he was just fine and legally I had to send them to him. The latest, he claims he can no longer drive them so I have to drive to the town he lives in to drop them off and pick them up? He's going to trail during the first month of next year and I still don't know how much jail time he will be serving, as their will be a minimum in the state we are in.
My kids, they don't know anything about the issues with their Dad. They don't know about my fears about my job/income. They didn't know about my health scare. They didn't know I had to take out a home equity loan to pay off the piling up credit card debt to make ends meet. All they know are the items I typed up in the Christmas letter this evening. All the fun events and times we had this past year. Which, as I typed this, makes complete sense. As a 7 and 9 year old shouldn't have to know or worry about whether or not Mom can pay all the bills this month. Whether or not she has a disease that may take her life in the near future. They don't need to know all the trouble their Dad is in with the law and how he treats me. They don't need to know, once we finish bedtime books, say our prayers, and after they fall asleep, Mom lays in bed and crys. Not knowing where will be next year. Not knowing if their Dad will clean up his life, be able to keep his job so that we'll have child support...as if we don't, we can't afford to stay here, not with my salary alone. They don't need to know how lonely it gets when everyone is asleep and I wonder why I have allowed myself the pain of trusting men in the past, only to become hurt and alone. Wondering how I will ever meet a man who could be honest, loving and supportive for me when I only have a couple hours Wednesday night and every other weekend to find him...wait, that will be ending or stopping for awhile when their Dad going to jail in January or whenver that occurs next year. I have given up on online dating, as I have discovered the people I have met there, have spent hours with IMing, texting, or getting to know, they aren't ones I can trust. I don't understand how things will look up next year. I also don't understand why I have to go through pain.
Sadly, I get jealous, watching the happy holiday commericals, tv shows and movies, seeing all of the loved ones celebrating their families for the holidays. Make no mistake, I am EXTREMELY grateful for my children, I thank God everyday for bringing them into my world. But I have to wonder why is it I can't have more? I am not trying to be greedy, I don't want more money, well, enough to pay the bills each month would be nice, but what I want is a soul mate/a man to love and care for me...one I can share my life with. Who can support me emotionally and I can do the same in return. It's just hard to go to sleep alone, night after night, month after month, wondering if I am going to be alone the rest of my life. I realize God has blessed with me with children, but they are mine only for such a short period of time, they will continue on with their own lives. The reality, while getting out all the decorations for Christmas this past weekend, that it is now our fifth Christmas just the three of us, hit me. The first one was a struggle to get through in so many other ways...the second, I knew I was in a new home, starting over and had a bit of hope along with that. The third I was finally newly divorced and filled with optimism again. Last year, an engagement ended right before Christmas, as not only was he looking to relocate for work, but he just couldn't jepordize his life with the actions my ex was taking. It wasn't Christmas, but sitting alone New Years Eve crying that was the hardest part last year.
Now, I am looking at our fifth Christmas just the three of us and it's starting to feel like it may always be this way. I am so grateful that God has allowed me this time with my children and to meet them, you wouldn't think it mattered a bit that it was just the three of us. Again, I thank God for that. But the reality is sinking in...yes, another New Year's Eve is coming with no one to kiss at midnight. A New Year is only a month away and now what? After the pain that has occurred this year, I am scared to think what next year might bring. The optomist in me tries to continue on day after day, but it gets to a point, often when I can't sleep, that I am reminded I am human. Tears pour out of my eyes whether I want them to or not. I can paint pretty pictures of all the fun we had this past year, but underneath, the pain, it's still there. It's still alive.
I am not trying to be selfish, or give up on God having a plan for me. It's just that sometimes I just don't understand why we have to spend so much time in pain. Why we have to lay in bed and have thoughts/fears/worries race through our minds. I prayed out to God again tonight, on my own, while I laid there with tears rolling down my checks. Why? Why can't I be grateful, why can't I trust that everything will be okay? I just don't understand why.
Perhaps that's the point. That there is a lesson from this pain, that I am going to or am suppose to grow from this experience in my life. I am trying to make the best of the life I have been given. I am trying to be honest, caring, hardworking, loving, I am trying to do all the things I am suppose to take care of my kids, to pay the bills, to be the best me I can be....but it still hurts. I am still in pain, not all day long, not every hour, but it's still there, I wish I could make it go away, but right now, I can't. I guess it is what it is. I have to keep breathing in and out and continue on.
