[Soft*Silver]

my holidays have changed over the years. I use to go all out decorating, inviting family over for get togethers and meals, etc when my daughter lived with me. As she matured and moved on, my health also started to decline so I had less ability to decorate but I still held dinners. Then even that changed. I went to people's houses instead. I was too poor to afford to make meals and frankly, had no one left in my life. Its amazing what poor health does to a social registry.

I met chrissy, and in the beginning, I wanted to do the holidays again because he was with me. But alas, he was still so hurt over the trauma from his past around holidays, that he could not enjoy them. He helped me put some things up for decor' but I forfeited alot because I knew it was hard on him. But, over the past few years he has come to see these holidays in a new Present light. He is beginning to enjoy it now.

And now, I am back together with my daughter, and she is pregnant. I will have a grandchild to enjoy Christmas with! We are invited to their house for Thanksgiving and they are coming to our for Christmas. I am ready to pull out all the decorations again and burst open the holiday dinnerware! A baby!!! A BABY!

life has its ebbs and flows. When I was most desolate and depressed living away from Ohio, I never thought I would feel loved again. I feared I would leave there and be unconnected to anyone ever again. My heart was broken at so many different levels, but on the larger scale, that sense of having a place in the world, was shattered. I was without family, friends, a lover, a home, no horses, no god, no job, no health, no nothing. Never have I been closer to the edge of my world than then. And now, I am celebrating again. I am at the top of my mountain and singing like that crazy nun.

So, for some, holidays might be very dark times, a candid snapshot of all that is lost or never had. Life can change tho, as it did in mine. It took everything bit of courage I had to go on, inch by inch, but it worked. So I guess I am saying this...that if your holidays are dark moments, lift them up however you need to, in order to put that tinsel on your tree...