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I'll be home for Christmas...

...you can count on me.

Ugh. I don't know where home is anymore. If home is where the heart is, then I am utterly lost. I feel lost. There's family stuff going on that I don't know how to handle. I suppose I have this ideal situation running through my head of how my family should be. How things should be without my mom here. That reality I cannot change. I cannot bring my mom back. As much as I want to, I can't.

Anyway, this ideal situation that often plauges me when things in my family aren't going as smoothly as I want them to, is again plauging me. I want my family to be happy. I want my dad to come to terms that his ex wife isn't the best person for him. She never will be no matter how much counseling she goes though. There has been too many rifts, tears in the tapestry that is our family, that she has caused that there is no way that any of us, my siblings and I, could be happy with them reconciling. All in all, I want my dad back.

In my head, this tapestry was this huge piece of art. Sure, it had its little snags. I won't pretend that my family is perfect because, obviously, we are not. But this hanging was bright patchwork of art. Colors and stitchings that complemented each other. They worked; they made sense. After my mom died, the stitchings were coming undone. I feel that the stitches could have been repaired over time. They wouldn't be as tight or neat as they were when my mom was around, but it could have been mended. Perhaps the stitches could have been beautiful again if the right woman came along for my dad. The stitches would have been a different kind of beautiful. My mom's work wouldn't have been redone. Whatever reinforcing of the stitches that would have occured would only enhance the beauty that was there before. From the point of new patchwork that would eventually be added with this new mother-like figure, the work done would be different, maybe a different style, but it wouldn't take away from what was there before. It would just be new. In my head, it meshes the old and the new. New things and the old things are brought together.

It didn't happen with his ex. It was more of a show, a facade if anything else. The word temporary comes to mind. There was no meshing. No reinforcment of what was already unraveling before. Once my dad and his ex got divorced, whatever she brought to the tapestry was disposed of and what was beneath was a tapestry that fell into disrepair. I feel like my family was thrown by the wayside with the unraveling stitches falling apart even more.

I know I shouldn't blame her for everything that has happened. She just happens to be one of many catalysts that has started the unraveling.

At least for me.

I feel like everything is falling apart around me. My family has always been a source of strength for me. Now I feel like I have no one to lean on when I need the support. I don't want to feel like a martyr, because I'm not. It'd be incredible selfish of me to feel that way about the whole situation. I suppose I've always been an idealist when it comes to families. I look at a certain family with whom I am in accquaintance, and I can't help but think to myself, "They have it so easy. The girls have both their parents. They have enough money. They have never known the sorrow that my family has experienced. They are allowed to live at home. They have each other." Am I jealous? Yes, I am. But on the other hand, they lead a very sheltered life that I refuse to live. I refuse to let my future children live a sheltered life like that.

I hate having such a dishelved mess of a family at Thanksgiving. It doesn't feel like Thanksgiving at all, actually. I hate that feeling. I loathe it. The holiday season is supposed to be all about family. Bringing families closer together reminding them that without each other, they don't have anything.

I am crying inspite of myself. Maybe its the lateness of the hour or because I am so tired...probably both.

All I want for Christmas is a family that has healed, that has forgiven each other, that has finally started to breath anew.

Comments

Sarah said…
Oh man, Joyce, that is so tough. I think I can understand a little. My mom just got married for the 5th time. Yeah, FIFTH! With this last marriage I just flipped out. I mean, I was MAD. And she has the gall to tell me that it's MY fault I feel this way. Give me a freaking break! Anyway, I feel your pain a little. I hope things work out. Miss you.

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