Monday, December 17, 2012

The Christmas Time Blues

The closer it gets to Christmas/Yuletide the harder it gets for me.  I have hated this time of year since 1969, the year that my mother died. I was 13 years of age. But I did my best to not let my feelings about this time of year get in the way of providing the best holiday season possible for my family. Poverty was always an issue, but I found that if I started as soon as the new year started in my search for gift suitable items that I could come up with something nice for everyone. Come December the food was the focus with holiday baking and the feast the focus of my work. X-mas eve was gifts time, with a coffee and finger foods party for friends and family to drop by. X-mas day was the turkey feast and often we had guests. It was a family tradition from my husband's side of the family that our feast was open to anyone who had nowhere else to go.

I spent all of my adult life making Christmas for my family. My family shrank as folks died, moved away, or just got their own lives and families and didn't need my husband and I any longer.


The past two years have been two years of sheer ongoing hell. 
Two years where so many things went wrong.
Two years when loved ones died.
Two years when friends were lost.
Two years of severe financial stress due to my husbands unemployment.
Two years of health problems getting worse.

The past year things got worse.
My family fell apart.
We are being forced to sell our home and move.. where we will go I do not know. How we will manage I do not know. This was supposed to be my forever home.
I lost my beloved garden.

I feel very betrayed, and abandoned.

How many losses can a person endure and still be alive??

People ask me about how my children and grandchild are doing. I do not know.
They are not in my life.
It hurts like hell.

It is only recently that my husband has started a new, good job. Not enough time to pay off the bills. 

The TV is a source of misery. All the stuff about family. Family get togethers. Gift giving. Buy, buy, buy.. decorate.. celebrate. Go to this function or that event.. spend, spend, spend.

I am poor, and I am ill. I am housebound. I feel alone.
My best cat died in October. My Princess Squeeky II, my feline alter ego. She has 14. Princess Squeeky I lived to be 16, and died in October as well. After having 30 years of having a Princess Squeeky beside me I miss her terribly. I feel that part of me died when she did: "I am her, and she is me, and together us are we."

My house is cold. We cannot afford to keep it warm. We cannot afford to use too much hot water either. 

There is little comfort in my world.

I find myself silently weeping. I do not know why. My heart is breaking every day.

I am lost. I feel useless, worthless, un-needed and unwanted. 

At least my husband is working. That is one good thing.