Can you believe Christmas is here and gone.  I can’t!!  It feels like I have been watching the days go by as a by-stander watching myself from outside my body going through the motions.  I haven’t been on here since September and I had a small health issue in October, they discovered I had high blood pressure, then on November 7th I had a stroke.  I have been put through the ringer with all the test that I have had.  I think they have x-rayed, MRI’d, Cat Scanned and ultra-sound everything from the top of my head to my feet trying to find out what has happened.  They have narrowed it down to a blood clotting disorder and I will find out in January if I have lupus.  I have never had so many test, and had so many holes poked in me….I swear that if I fell in a pool of water I would sink from all the holes.  I have not felt like myself in so long, I almost forgot what it was like to have a good day.  I wanted to tell them all that is was just a broken heart, that was what was wrong. 

Then before I knew it Thanksgiving was here, it was horrible, I felt bad and it seemed that I was just expected to keep going and pretend that everything was ok, and it’s not.  I don’t know if being sick has made me more emotional or if it is just this time of year, but Thanksgiving was rough, somehow I got through it.  I had to let some things slide, such as Awana for several weeks, and I missed several bible study nights just because I couldn’t get myself going full speed.  I kept kidding everyone that this getting old ain’t for sissies!!  

Then Christmas was upon us, I still don’t know how I managed to get through it.  I feel like I am in a fog and it just isn’t really here and happening.  I put a tree up in Coady’s room with all his ornaments and managed to get my tree up, then it took me 2 weeks to just manage to get the house decorated.  This whole time, it just didn’t feel like Christmas, and making crafts with my friend Sarah just felt like a process, it was like I was just getting a job done.  I don’t know where my Christmas Spirit has gone, but it was just something I felt like I was expected to do.  I did enjoy spending time with Michael and Rich, I just like being with them and not having to be something that I am not….they accept me as I am, broken..I don’t have to pretend to be happy or put on a smile to make them comfortable like I do everyone else.  I always hate to see them leave, but in a way, I wish I could pack my things and leave all this behind too.  

As I pack the Christmas away, my heart grows very heavy with what the upcoming month brings.  Coady’s 22nd birthday is just around the corner, and then the day my nightmare began is next.  I try not to think about how I am going to get through it, I just try to live one moment at a time.  I always wish I could go to sleep around October and wake up again in the spring and just miss all of this time of year, it holds no joy for me, only grief.   Who knows if it will ever be different, I know I don’t.  I didn’t choose this path to walk down, and it’s one that I have never been before so I don’t know what the outcome will be.  All I know is that I will be glad for Spring.