Happy Thanksgiving...I woke up today feeling anxious, in extreme physical pain and depressed. REALLY?! It's Thanksgiving!! Turkey with all the trimmings, house smelling good, family gathering around, I have a son, an amazing son. I have a job, quality friends. What the hell, I'm such a downer!
I was fiddling around and posting various good tidings to friends and that's when my mind sort of wandered, almost like a flashback in a movie I started thinking of when I didn't have all of this.
Something about the smell in the air, the dull gray of the sky and the cold drippy endless rain. Something about the smell of the turkey cooking in the oven and me barefoot in my warm house, that reminded me when I didn't have this safe comfortable shelter.
I can remember even when I did finally have my own apartment and had somewhere warm to stay, I would watch all of my friends who I looked at as just as "hardcore" as I was, go off to their families houses and have a proper family meal at holiday time.
I on the other hand anxiously awaited the end of the holiday so I could get past the pain and the feeling of abandonment and go back to my routines...even though I knew Christmas would be my next challenge and it was just around the corner.
Please don't get me wrong, sometimes I was invited to friends families homes for Thanksgiving. Sometimes I accepted and sometimes I didn't out of embarrassment. I was like the homeless waif that people "felt sorry" for and that was so shameful to me. I tried to be badass and cover up my feelings and as soon as everyone was off to their perspective family homes, I would cry until it hurt.
I did at one point start to have my own Thanksgiving once I learned how to cook a Turkey. The heroin addict/crackhead/alcholic who would get frequently beat actually taught me how to cook a turkey. Marilyn was her name, she almost always had some sort of bruise on her face and she was always intoxicated with a cocktail of drugs. For a brief time in my life, Marilyn was good company. (Sunday you remember her don't you?)I wonder if Marilyn is still alive....doubt it.
I can relax and be grateful knowing what I have today and that I'm not hungry at holiday time anymore, I am not alone drinking cheap wine and getting more depressed with every drink, I am not feeling like I wish I had never been born.
I am happy to be alive, I am grateful and today I'm still hurting and I think it's because there is someone(s) out there today feeling like I did and there is nothing I can do to help.
I end this saying that I am indeed thankful, I believe God has given me a new life and many many blessings and opportunities. I have thought over the years that the pain will go away or at the least fade but as long as the holidays approach and the festivities begin, I will always remember and I will always hurt a litte.
Happy Holidays ~ All my love, Angie
(I knew by the time I wrote this I would feel better)
Yes, Angie I think I do remember Marylyn (she lived upstairs), I always felt sorry for her because she was such a train wreck (Which is funny in hind-sight because I was quite the train-wreck myself.).
ReplyDeleteIt is so funny that for me that my favorite holidays have been the ones I spent with friends and my “chosen” family. For my children’s sake I attempted to build a relationship with my “real”(dad's)family after all of the rejection and abandonment, but unfortunately realized yesterday that was actually hurting my children. They feel it too, and it has apparently been making my 12 year old very uncomfortable for years, how sad is that?
This year we will be spending out Thanksgiving in OUR house with people who like and respect each other (me, Jim and our 3 kids), and we will be going by my “chosen” family for some desert and love, what I should have been dong these past few years anyway.
In the long run, maybe we are better off cutting those ties with those who continue to hurt us (and our kids by proxy, because they do notice!)
I love you; I hope you have a great day with the people who love you.