This Christmas was not the ideal Christmas I had in mind. Funny enough, all the potential bad stuff we were anticipating went okay. The less than ideal Christmas was the result of everything I did not anticipate.
Leading up to Christmas, I did everything “right.”
- I participated in the must do Christmas things. We went to Christmas craft-fairs, we decorated the house inside and out, we celebrated the holidays with friends, we listened to Christmas music, and we watched Christmas movies. There was no Grinch allowed in this house leading up to Christmas – I embraced the season and made a point to enjoy it all.
- We organized everything days and even weeks in advance. The menu for each meal was organized and where possible things were prepared early.
- I cleaned before our house-guests arrived and I’ve cleaned daily while they are here. Our house has been decently pretty the entire time.
- We planned activities for our guests – day time activities, evening activities, outdoor activities on the warmer days, inside activities for the colder days. Activities like ice-skating, movie marathons, dog walking, gourmet meals, visit to the mountains, board games, etc.
- We submitted all the adoption paperwork before Christmas. This was important to me so that we could look forward to 2015 with hope as we will move into the adoption home study in January.
- We told all our family about our decision to adopt – everyone has been excited and supportive. Even those we were unsure about, have pleasantly surprised us by being happy for us.
Yet, evidently, all the preparation in the world did not result in an amazing Christmas break thanks to life being, well, life. It doesn’t seem to matter what I plan, life doesn’t go according to my plan. (When will I ever learn to throw away my plans and just accept that I have no ability to control and influence things beyond my control?)
We had four unexpected surprises:
- My grandmother fell and is now in the hospital having emergency surgery. She is going to have a long recovery which will undoubtedly be hard on her and many members of the extended family.
- One of the children in our lives whom we greatly love spent a few days in the hospital right before Christmas. He is home now, but will be facing a battery of tests in the coming weeks to determine if his illness has resulted in long term damage.
- I didn’t realize just how bad some of our extended family drama is. I’m incredibly worried about some of Mr. MPB’s family members, yet I also realize this is not directly my problem or my place to say or do anything. Yet, it has become evident to me that some sort of mental health problems are occurring in members of this family and they are greater than I had realized. So whether or not I like it, I/we will be forced to deal with this in the coming weeks and years.
- Mr. MPB and I are sorting through more residual RPL crap that I wasn’t expecting. When will it stop? When will the hurt of losing 5 babies go away? When will the years of hurt stop permeating into every element of our lives? What more do we have to do to make it stop? I’m honestly just sick and tired of it. I thought we already threw in the towel when we decided to adopt, so why is it all so hard? Why can things not just return to being easy? When can we just go back to being carefree about life? Can we ever go back? Are the scars so deep that they will never heal? Are we forever broken?
As I sit here today hiding from our house-guests for a few hours, feeling pretty miserable about myself and life, I realized that maybe I/we aren’t as far down the path of healing as I thought we were. Maybe I/we were never that far down the path of healing, rather I was just trying to convince myself that we were? Or hopefully, this last few days is just a bump along the road, and we’ll re-find ourselves on more comfortable ground in a few days time? Maybe I’m exhausted from having house guests for 4 nights, and once I get my space back I’ll relax again? Or maybe I’m just broken and always will be.
While it was a more challenging Christmas then I expected I should point out that through all of it we did enjoy moments of joy. We celebrated together and with our families. And, we did see moments of happiness every single day, and I have the photos to prove it. So, while it wasn’t perfect and I’m feeling lousy right now, it could have been worse. And, on some level I am grateful that it wasn’t worse.
My last thought for today – the biggest things this Christmas has taught me:
Next year I’ll lower my expectations of the holidays and I’ll just expect everything to generally suck.
Or better yet, next year I’m skipping the entire thing and am booking a trip to a warm and sunny destination!
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Every now and again something happens. Something very small, or maybe something very big. It all depends on the day, the circumstance and my internalization of the actual moment in time.
All these somethings have one thing in common – I am left reminded of all my failures.
Failure at being a good enough wife.
Failure at being a good enough mother.
Failure at being a good enough friend.
Failure at being a capable reproducing women.
Failure at working enough and contributing financially to our lives.
Failure at figuring out what I am going to do with my professional career.
Failure.
Plain and simply, there are days where I feel like a complete failure. These are the days when all I can think of are the things that I am not doing very well. All the things I once did well (or very well for that matter), or the things I was naive enough to think I could do easily enough. All the successes that now feel so far away.
When these feelings arise, most days I can push them aside and focus on some good things and hope for a better tomorrow.
But then there are days like today where I feel like I cannot get anything right.
I am not going to sit here right now and try to turn this into a happy moment or a lesson in perseverance to see a better tomorrow. Instead, I am going to sit in the emotions and throw myself a pity-party.
I’m hoping a good night’s sleep will help, and tomorrow I will wake up feeling a better and a bit more like my more cheerful self. I plan to re-read this post first thing in the morning to give myself a boost in that direction.
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P.S. my current emotional state has nothing to do with my in-laws, they actually took the news very well. I’ll post more on that in a few days when I have time to write.
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My Perfect Breakdown 