Waking

Christmas approaches, and with it a tidal wave of busy-ness. I keep thinking, "Just get through the next 2 weeks." Part of me thinks this isn't how I want to be spending my holidays ... but the truth is - so much of what I'm doing I want to do.

So a mental shift is in order. Since I want to be doing almost all of these activities, I should look forward to each one individually. I should stop looking at my calendar and feeling overwhelmed by seeing everything I've got going on, all spread out over the next 2 weeks, stacked one upon another. I should just take one at a time and enjoy them each for what they are.

There, that already feels a little better!

Early this morning I dreamed that my sisters, their children, Dad and I were all at someone's house. As Dad and I got in the car to drive home, he laughed one of his large laughs, and in the dream, that laugh made me miss Mom so much that I burst into tears. And then I woke myself up crying.

Oh, the seeming impossibility of Christmas without a parent. Yesterday, walking through the grocery store with a friend, I said, "I hate Christmas." Is that really true? No - I don't think it is. I know it's not true. I think what I mean is I hate this feeling of deep-down inside hurting, and the hurt being stirred like sediment in a river - stirred with every pretty house of Christmas lights, every carol, every happy family, every memory that lies under the surface and rises painfully in my sleep.

But I know from losing Mom that each year will be a little easier. I'm also increasingly certain that I'll miss them so much for the rest of my life. But the missing will turn into the dull ache, the melancholy memories - it won't be this stabbing, this burning.

So today I'll bake some cookies, spend time with my friend, do a few dishes. Today I'll think about Christmas presents, maybe decorate just a little, and miss Dad.