Holidays

I have to be honest. Holiday's are hard for me.

Sharing custody 50/50 means there are half of the remainder of my holidays that will be spent without my kids. 

It sucks.

When I was a kid, my parents always made holidays special.  Every Easter there were personal baskets, every Valentine's day there was a stuffed animal, chocolates and a card...and Christmas was out of this world! I woke up to presents that I had asked for during the year, sometimes I had forgotten all about them.  One year, in Alabama, I had said something about wishing I had a birthstone ring.  A girl I knew had one I thought it was so crazy special and cool.  It was way too fancy for my 11-ish year old mind...how fantastic to have a real ring with an emerald in it?!

I also, that same year, would run to a specific jewelry case in K-Mart to look at this beautiful cross necklace. It was silver and had an amethyst in the center.  It reminded me of a medieval cross and I just needed it so bad. My dad would laugh and say that maybe someday I could have one like it. I kept hoping that if I looked at it enough times, he would buy it for me and I would wear it out of the store.  One day we went in and it was gone.  I was heartbroken.

Guess what I got in my stocking that year?  I opened this tiny present that had been hiding in my stocking amid candy...and there was my necklace.  I thought I was just going to die!  Not long after that gift, I opened one that had this sweet little emerald ring - all mine and it fit perfectly. 

After that things kinda went 'south' on holiday's.  The next year it was just a home movie of me sitting alone on the couch on one side of the room and my parents on the other. I opened my presents alone and that was it.  I can't remember why my siblings weren't there that year....maybe my brother was fighting in Desert Storm that Christmas.  Then my dad got sick and money was tight, we moved back to Missouri and I watched my mom struggle to make me an afghan for Christmas that year.

When my ex and I got married, I wanted every holiday for my kids to be special like it was for me.  NO matter what struggle, holidays were important. Family around us, cookouts, surprise gifts...

Dad died.  Divorce happens. 

Holiday's suck now.

I'm home on the 4th of July. Sitting behind my computer. 

I see images of my kids having fun with their dad at SDC and I'm so happy for them. 

I'm sad because I'm not with them.  I'm sad that those memories aren't with me in them.  Sometimes I feel like I'm an outsider on their lives.

I don't go to cookouts anymore, no grand family get togethers or outings.  I miss holidays.  I miss when they meant crazy family and fun days.

Now they just bleed...day into another. 

I work, I sleep, I work, I sleep...I stare at computer screens....

There has to be more than this.....