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Tuesday, 20 December 05 :: grieving

i think i'm grieving christmases past. huh? growing up christmas was always the best time of the year for me. we'd go to our grandparents houses and see everyone. once school was out, we had 2 weeks just to revel in vacation, family, and presents. there were definetly some stressful times, but for the most part -- as a kid -- holiday times were the best times of the year for me. i was a kid of middle class privilage who had a family who loved her, and i knew it.

but now, at 32, living 3000 miles away, but -- more importantly -- my failure to create for myself what my birth family created for me, i feel intense sadness. what used to be the best time of the year for me is now the worst time of the year.

life will never ever be the same. dede, al, and louise - aka baba, granddad and gammy - are gone. they will never come back to us, and i, i will never be young ever again. i will never be carefree again, i will never be that ever again.

i'm resigned to the fact that i will probably be single forever. that to create a semblance of those christmases for myself i must become a single parent. i'm resigned to the fact that i will never have the joy of curling up with my partner and the 2 of us taking the joy of our child on a magical christmas morning as s/he is showered in love by all those who love us -- both by blood and by the heart. i'm resigned to the fact that i will never get to create for myself as an adult what was created for me as a kid.

i know, it sounds pretty hopeless. depressing, eh? thats how i feel right now, rather depressed. i gave up a trip to baja with friends for a job i hate. i don't have a family of my own so that i can joyfully continue to work while others are taking off to partake in that which i used to partake in.

i know, i should have hope, i should reach down in my belly and find it, but frankly, i don't have the energy to do that. when i'm sitting in my apartment alone, when i'm knowing what is going on outside, and most importantly, when i'm recalling what i know i used to have, in this moment, i just can't find a bit of hope. i've spent a lifetime hoping for the future, hoping that this illness that desended upon me at some too early age would disappear, that the next year would find love for me, would find better things for me. i know things are somewhat better, but when you boil it down to the kernel, when you get to see your life raw compared to others, what i know is that while parts of my life might appear better, what is actually true is that those parts that aren't are simply more painful. they stick out and get rubbed raw at times like this.

posted by brooke at December 20, 2005 10:14 AM

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about
i'm brooke, born in '73. i am currently a phd student in instructional technology. this is the blog where i capture all the neurotic, and the few non-neurotic, moments that seem to come with being a phd student (if you want to read less neuroses and more professionalism go to: oer's, dl's, reuse and culture: it's about a phd student researching digital resources in a multicultural world). i have been from eugene, oregon for a long time.. 8 years specifically (its my home now, but i grew up in southwestern virginia), but now i'm here in logan, utah at utah state university. after finding my roots in eugene i never could have expected that i would leave that liberal oasis and head to utah. but i did and there are days when its a blessing and days when i'm tempted to go back to oregon and beg the folks at lost valley educational center to let me move in. but i won't leave because there are days when this process is better than any kind of high i could ever imagine. what else? i collect things, i have 2 cats, 2 kayaks, 2 laptops (i'm a geek - one mac, one pc). i can be emailed at brookesblog@rivervision.com.