Holidays

I love the holiday season. I love the air as it turns crisp and cool. I love the night sky as it darkens and stars sprinkle across the blanket of black, a sort of dark peace that only comes in the colder months. I love the smell of pine filling my nostrils as I stretch to put ornaments on the high branches. I love cocoa and carols and all of those brilliant holiday movies. I love Christmas morning with my parents, the quiet as paper crackles, the smell of Christmas breakfast falling like a blanket on my shoulders.

I love it all. Maybe because I was born in December and for some reason December babies have a deep love for the holiday. My best friend, who I will call A I guess, and I always go nuts over the holiday season. Going to the Zilker Christmas Tree, Trail of Lights, walking through the mall as all the sweet aromas of holiday hit us. I guess it’s a certain special … connection? It’s just a good time of the year for me.

But this year is a sad one. Yesterday, while Fil was resting up for work (she’d had the night previous off) she was wracked with nightmares about losing Michael all over again. Probably because she fell asleep clutching my stomach. It’s something we haven’t honestly talked about, save a few moments stolen to hold each other and cry. All projections point to THIS WEEK being his due date. My birthday week. What a wonderful present that would’ve been, right? Instead it’s just the biggest downer.

I realise that this is supposed to be a wonderful holiday, my first with my family in our lovely home. But I can’t help but be saddened by the fact that there isn’t a drooling, babbling baby to hold on that first soft, sweet Christmas morning.  I think that this is getting to Fil, because she’s becoming increasingly withdrawn and quiet, and I feel her energy focusing on something completely internal. It worries me, when she goes inside. I rebuild all of those walls of mistrust and go numb to all things again.  I simply cannot afford it this year.

So, I hope that tomorrow when I wake up I won’t be plagued with feelings of dread and pain and that I can just focus on being 19, and slowly stepping away from that aura of “you’re finally a BIG GIRL now” that seems to stink from your pores the entire time you’re 18. Ugh.

Also, as a side note. Today is my grandmother K’s birthday. She turned 40 as they induced my mother and merely 3 hours after the day closed on her big 4-0, I was born. One time she took me aside and said I was one of the most wonderful birthday presents she’s ever been given. I love that woman to death, sometimes she’s been more of a grandmother than my biological grandmother has been to me. Happy Birthday, K!