Saturday, December 23, 2017

The End is Near

I've been gone for a while again. The truth is that Keith's death knocked me for a loop and then some. I started to close in on myself. Then, one day, I woke up and suddenly things seemed better. I could almost hear Keith telling me that it was time for me to get back to writing and to living.  So, write I did. I spent a lot of my spare time working on my second book with Nick. I went out to the local NaNoWriMo write ins and focused on that and on my boys.

Time passed and mentally and emotionally, things have gotten better. For the most part they've been okay physically as well. That's if you ignore the past two weeks when I've been down and out with bronchitis. If you'd asked me just a few days ago, I probably would have told you that I was pretty sure I was dying. Losing the ability to breathe properly is such a terrible feeling! Thank goodness for antibiotics. I only wish that they would have prescribed me some cough medicine so that I could sleep at night. Today was the first day in a week that I got dressed properly. Then, like a crazy person, I went out into the cold and did some grocery shopping. It took its toll on me but I got through it and I'm determined to continue to be on the mend. I don't pick up the boys until Monday (Christmas) night so I can take the next couple of days to recover.

I mentioned above that things have gotten better emotionally and mentally. That's been something that's very much been on my mind these past few days. It's been a big change for me over the past year or so. Last year (and a lot of years before that), when December 1st rolled around, I'd start looking for Christmas cards in the mail. A couple of weeks before Christmas, I'd look for packages to be delivered. As the days would go by and they didn't appear, I'd get sadder and more upset. I would curl up and think about how alone I was going to be when the boys were at their dad's on Christmas Day and how I'd have nothing of my own to open. In my head, I would convince myself that nothing coming meant that no one loved me.

Writing that seems so silly but it's the truth. At some point in my life, I started equating getting things from people as meaning they cared about me. After all, you do get things for people you care about. The problem came that I also believed the opposite to be true when it came to me. Somewhere over the past year though, that changed. I don't entirely know when or why but it did. Oh, I have my suspicions but nothing that I can say, "Yep, that was it."

As the clock has ticked down towards Christmas, not a gift has arrived and only one card. I have a stack of about fifty that I'll be mailing out once I have the funds for postage. Granted, a lot of them are for supporters of my son's trip, but quite a lot are personal choice as well. In the past, this would have had me in tears by now. This year, I look at it and know that I am loved by those that matter to me and that no gift in the world is more important to me than their love and support. Those closest to me are a small group but they're the most important group in the world to me and there's no greater gift than their love and the time shared together.

As we get closer to 2018, I know that 2017 has been incredibly hard for some of them and for me as well. We're all ready to begin again and while I firmly believe that you can begin again at any time, there symbolic changing of the year is a good time to reflect and to plan. I'm so happy to be able to say that I'm going into it stronger, calmer, and surrounded by love.

So here's to sharing the holidays with each other, near and far, to loving ourselves and each other and to going into 2018 ready to be the change that we need within ourselves and to make this world a brighter, better place. I know that things will come that we may not be ready for, that life will throw us challenges and torments, but I also know that there will be good moments. The bad may out count the good but the good will still be there and it's our job to not only remember the good but to increase the good around us.

Happy holidays, my friends!




PS To see my year end wrap up of good and my 2018 goals, check out Life With Katie. As I'm able, I'll be writing those up.

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