As I’ve mentioned before, time just keeps on coming. The holidays have come quickly and I’m not ready. I’m not in the mood to shop (and that is usually a favorite past time). I even skipped Black Friday shopping, a tradition I’ve enjoyed for years. It was about the time of Thanksgiving that I realized I really hadn’t done any shopping yet. Luckily I was able to just go online and buy anything I could possibly need to gift. Packages have been coming nearly every day since.
We started the Elf on the Shelf tradition a few years ago and used to take great pride in our elf’s antics. This year, nearly every night I forget to do anything at all. I then rush downstairs in the middle of the night or early in the morning to just move the elf to a new location. No snowball fights with cotton balls. No forts out of blocks. No flour footprints. It’s all I can do to just move the thing.
On our last day of school yesterday, the teachers put on a dance through the decades. I would normally be right there with them making a fool of myself for the students’ benefit. Instead, I sat and watched from the stands. My heart wasn’t in it, and I fought hard to keep my tears at bay as I watched from the sidelines and thought about how different things are this year than they were supposed to be.
Then come the gatherings. They each force me into a situation with a bunch of people I haven’t seen or spoken to since losing Olivia. I feel that sense of being conspicuous again. I’m not sure which is worse: worrying that everyone is thinking about our loss when they look at me or the reality that most don’t say anything at all about her.
Today we were supposed to bake cookies at my mom’s house. Another motion that I’m supposed to do. I decided earlier this week that rather than make dough, roll it out, cut it into shapes, and bake it, all before decorating, that I would, for the first time ever, buy the cutouts already baked at the store. When the kids couldn’t get their behavior in check we didn’t even do that.
The coming days will bring “celebration” after “celebration” and I’m not in the mood.
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