An innocent enough question. So why is it so hard to consider answering it?

Let’s see….

We’ll start on Thursday, X’s birthday. Luckily, I don’t have to spend it with him, but I do need to be a good mom and provide opportunity (and probably $) for the boys to get him something. That is added into my schedule.

Friday will end early with a meeting with the candidacy committee at 1:00. I’ll probably go over to church after the meeting, but mostly to debrief and only because it’s across the street from where we are meeting.

Friday evening is with the boys. I take them back to X’s at 10:00 p.m. Too late to meet up with anyone because I am on-call (for the LAST TIME) on Saturday. That also means no plans can be made since I’ll be on beeper from 5pm-8am.

Sunday is a full morning at church, as usual. Sunday afternoon marks the beginning of holiday hell week as far as I’m concerned. M&N’s holiday open house begins at 2:00 p.m. These are DS1’s godparents and up until two years ago my closest friends. Up until N decided she couldn’t still be my friend since I decided that no marriage was better than a crappy one.

This is a party where usually about 100 people attend.

• People from church (the church where X still goes and sees everyone every week; where I used to go and work as music staff; the church where the rest of the boys’ friends and their families go; women who used to be my support network but who since the divorce don’t call and feel very awkward around me.)
• People from N’s work…which also happens to be X’s work.
• M&N’s relatives

So, yeah. Not exactly my peeps anymore.

And yet, to not attend at all doesn’t seem to be an option. (Nor does bringing a date, so don’t even suggest it!)

Attending just feels like another 10 pound bag of shit added to the loneliness sled somehow.

And this is definitely a place where no-one would have any sympathy for my feelings; in fact would have condemning words for me if I even expressed them. So, when I go (for not going really isn’t an option…these people are so important in the lives of my boys) I have to put on the happy face.

I just don’t feel up to keeping up that act for very long.

The only temptation is that there’s always plenty of good food and plenty of wine.

So what does this weekend hold for me? A reminder of how my life used to be and how it hasn’t been repaired yet. A reminder of how alone I still am this holiday season and a reminder of how I do things in order to make other people happy without consideration of what will make me happy in the vain attempt that they will think I’m a good person…and therefore like me.

Go ahead, ask me: “So how’s that been working for you lately?”

**********************************
Update: The Service Plus guy was just here to fix my oven. (First here on the 27th of Nov. That part arrived last Thursday.)

Yeah.

Apparently, we need another part.

So this pretty much takes me completely off the hook for having any holiday baking done and probably off the hook for roast anything on Christmas Eve.

— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…

good news 2007
Food, Glorious Food! 2007
Busy day; enjoyable but exhausted 2005

— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…

good news 2007
Food, Glorious Food! 2007
Busy day; enjoyable but exhausted 2005

— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…

good news 2007
Food, Glorious Food! 2007
Busy day; enjoyable but exhausted 2005

Posted on December 11th, 2006 under friends, holidays, house, my crazy life, wine. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.