peace

Dear Diary,

It is nearing midnight.  My daughter and her family are with my son-in-law's family all the way over there in another state.  The winter holidays work well when one family is Christian and the other is not.  I am the not.

My oldest grandson had his holiday program on Thursday, so I was invited to come a day early because our first wintery weather was expected.  It mostly rained here, but where they live it had snowed the couple of days before and more was expected for most of the state.

The program was so wonderful.  The students in his school are being taught American sign language and the final performance was the entire school singing and signing a song about wishing that no one would be sad or feel bad and it was so beautiful.  Watching them signing as effortlessly as taking a breath was a powerful experience.  The little one sat between his mother and me on our folded coats and we all watched, completely enthralled.

We celebrated Yule early so that they could get away west as soon as possible, bad weather forecast and all.  Yule dinner is always on me and since the boys came along, is always take-out from their favorite Chinese restaurant.  And, their favorite dish is meat on a stick, lots of it.  We get enough food for two huge meals, and it is really delicious. 

The big snow did arrive, and I spent another couple of nights until it stopped and we could dig out.  There was less and less snow and icky roads as I came closer to home and when I got here the streets were clear and dry, with barely a dusting of the white stuff left on the grass.  Apparently it was seriously windy, though there was not much damage.

My little angel was sick.  I knew it.  He knew it and everyone else did.  I let him kiss me anyway.  I keep promising myself that when they are ill that we will hug and snuggle, but that no kissing will take place.  I cave every time.  I get their illness.  Every time.

So.  I have been sick since Friday night.  Taking lots of meds and keeping it at bay.  No voice.  Too bad no one else is around to appreciate the lack of my chattering.  Except for CoolCat, and he is mostly bewildered by the occasional squeak, and alarmed by the nearly constant coughing.  Hack.  Lordy.  I have been taking this mucus-reducing stuff and it might be working.  At least I do not have a crappy infection in my crappy lungs.

I took a month off from work, am half-way through it.  I needed the time to try and become healthier.  The results from my check-up a few weeks ago were not great and I am kind of ashamed that I have let lots of things go during the mess.  You either pay attention or you pay the price.

Therapy, well, what can I say.  I apparently need it, and I do not hate it as much as I used to, although I still mostly hate it.  I might stop.  It is not as though I do not appreciate the work that needs to be done or that I need to do the work.  I get all of that.  The work on being able to have feelings, you know, like a normal person, well, that is too difficult.  I cannot even get close to dealing with what happened.  If I do that, get close, do the work, I will have to feel stuff again.  I will have to relive all of that.  I think that I cannot do that, but mostly it is because I will not.  I am not going there. 

And, here we are.  At least I am.  I have this new life, whatever it is or can be will be of my own making.  I kind of love where I am right now.  No sense messing it up. 

The good part is that this holiday season is the best I have ever had.  Ever.  At least for the past forty years or so.  No stress and worry about doing the wrong thing without ever the benefit of knowing what that might actually be.  No concealing what was really happening and making all nice and cheerful so that no one would know.  So many secrets.  So many and I will never share them with anyone.  There are a few people who have the general outline, as it were, but no one, not a single person knows the truth, besides me and someone who is not me.  This is take to your grave stuff. 

When someone is alone during regular family-get-together things the popular theory is that that person is most likely feeling vulnerable and lonely.  I am certain that is so for some people.  The news lately has been so full of terrible things, stunning loss and natural disasters and lost jobs and serious health issues and so much more.  I am not comparing myself and my circumstances to those of anyone else, but I am grateful that I am doing as well as I am.  I am more lucky than I deserve to be.  It simply does not get any better than this.