First Holiday Season Without You

This holiday season will be the first one since you've been gone. I feel the loss of a mother ever more now than before. Granted, you had been gone for a while before that, but now I can't just go into your room and see you there. We hadn't been on speaking terms very much for a very long time, and I'm forever sorry for that. I don't know if it was me just wanting to spread my wings before you were ready or if you didn't want me to spread them at all. Some days I feel like my childhood would have been better without you in it, but more often than not, I feel that is not true. I recall those happy memories that made me cherish the little moments in life. You were my Step-Mother, but that is not said with disrespect. It is a fact. You were not the woman who gave birth to me, but you are the woman who helped raise me. My own mother has not been in my life for quite some time either, so the feeling of losing a mother has been doubly impactful to me.

I still feel anger in how you decided to leave. Why couldn't you find the joys in life? Why could you not come out and be with the family you helped create? Why did you let the condition of your health dictate your actions and feelings? Why could you and I never fully reconcile no matter how many times we tried? Was it because you no longer wanted to? Was it because you no longer felt it would ever happen? Even if you were still here, I fear I would never know the answers to those questions. I would never be able to work up the courage to actually ask you face to face.

I still feel sorrow for the loss of your life. We had our differences, but we had many happy times as well. I long for the days when we were super close and I could tell you anything. Those days have been long gone, but I still hold them close to my heart. I feel sorrow in that you thought death would be better than life. Maybe it would be. Nobody felt what you were feeling. I wish you would have chosen life. Life for the chance to get to know your grandkids. Life for the chance to watch them grow. But, again, nobody felt what you did. I am thankful that we had one last holiday with you being apart of it. If nothing else, we have those memories.

With you being gone, I fear I will never have that Mother/Daughter relationship I've always dreamed for. It has been increasingly apparent to me that those days are gone.  I hope that you feel peace and comfort knowing that we are happy and living our lives. Every day brings a chance for a little more acceptance of what I have lost and what I probably will never have again.

This first holiday without you is going to be a hard one for me. But with death brings life. I see the life in my children and I hope you do too, and that it makes you smile.

Self Realization

I had a moment of self realization this morning. It seems like it probably took me longer than it should have, but better late than never.....right??

So today is a school day, and so I was firing directions to the girls like I'm a General in the Army. "Isabelle, make sure your bed is made." "Kensi, after you're done brushing your teeth, make sure the cap is back on and the toothpaste is put away.". Things like that. But I was getting into the Mom Mobile to take Kensi to school when it kind of hit me. I've been sucking it up as a housewife in a way. Now, before anyone jumps to my defense, let me explain.

Back when I was still working, I'd complain a lot about how hard it was to get off of work at 5:30p, get Isabelle (and Kensi) from daycare, get home, and figure out supper right away. I just don't have that ability to figure out something on the spot. I'm a planner. It usually takes me almost all day to figure out what I want to make for supper. Grant and I then started discussing me being a stay at home mom. I, of course, was all for the idea because I don't like going to work anyway. I'd advocate myself and say how clean the house would be, how supper would be on the table...the usual things. I talked it up quite a lot.

Well now that I am a stay at home mom, I've started realizing how many things I don't do that I should be. I pick up the house quite a bit from the day to day activities of the kids. But the cleaning falls pretty short. I've been making excuses like the kids take up so much of my time, and now I'm trying to sell my thing I crochet so that's taking up my time too. I could argue that those are reasons and not excuses, but I'll be honest. I've been using those as an excuse more than a reason. Those are true, to an extent. But they're not stopping me from actually doing the cleaning. They're just a way for me to justify not cleaning more. Yes, I get laundry done, I get the kitchen cleaned up... but the mopping and vacuuming get pushed back quite a bit. The last time I vacuumed, I did the sunroom.  Just the sunroom. I should have done the living room and the girls' bedroom too. But I didn't... partly because I'm still not quite 100%, but I've done that before. A couple months ago, Grant asked me to start rotating in the garbage (wood and stuff that we tore out in the basement to start framing it) so we could get it cleaned up. We want to try and start finishing it this winter/spring. But I didn't. I just didn't. He brought it up in an offhand comment so I know it bugged him. As well it should have... I didn't hold up my end.

Just things like that that seem so little at the time, but add up to be a bigger issue. I need to do better. I'm not talking like being this Super Mommy/Wife who had everything perfect all of the time. Nope, not going to happen. But more just getting those things that aren't hurting our day to day life done so that it makes our home a little nicer.

Ok I said it, now to keep to it!!