Dear 40, Entry #1



In 25 hours and 4 minutes I will  turn 40

Growing up, I loved my birthday. The Christmas season was big in my house. My Dad's birthday was December 3 and that was the kick off to the season. We would eat black forest cake , listen to Elvis and Boney M sing their Christmas tunes. It was a very happy time.

Of course a week later it would be my birthday.  My parents always made sure that I had a birthday seperate from Christmas. It was always full of people, friends, anything that I wanted. I was their little darling. And frankly I knew it. I fail  to see how anything could be wrong with knowing that you are really and truly loved.

December was the most magical month. We did it all.

December of 1995 was a little different. Dad was diagnosed with Cancer and it all happened in December, right before my 16th birthday. I was shocked, devestated. My hero, this wasnt possible.

Nothing really changed though, it was a slow mover and he seemed fine. He took my best friend and I to  a concert for my 16th birthday and we danced in the isles the three of us. We laughed , we sang. We stayed at the Hotel Vancouver and ate swanky food. It was again just all part of the December Magic. The cancer felt unreal somehow.  I believed that we were untouchable in December, nothing could ever break the spell.

I was always genuinly happy in December, no matter what happened in the rest of the year I KNEW that the month of magic would happen and everything would go on pause

 My first Christmas away from home I was 19 and I was living in New York. I have a wild gypsy soul and at my graduation from highchool I had booked a ticket with a boyfriend who lived there and off I went.
Incidently as a parent now of a 16 year old I can not imagine what that much have been like for my parent. December the magical month and I was not there. Even in New York we had a cake for Dad on the 3rd and set up the Christmas tree.

.
I didnt believe that anything could take that away.

December 2003 changed everthing.

It had been a great year. I had given birth to a beautiful baby girl in February and she was the light of my life. I could not wait for our first Christmas, to be able to spread out the December magic to the next generation, but in August Dad's cancer had come back. It had been 8 years and foolishly we started to get complacent.
October, he had to go to Victoria because he wasnt feeling well at all,
November he was moved to Vancouver General's Blood Cancer wing for some radical treatments.
Dec 3 2003 my dad turned 58 in Vancouver with a cake and news the doctors were not going to tell him on his birthday.

Dec 4 2003 He was told that there was nothing further to be done and time was very limited.
Dec 7 2003 inspite of a ferry strike his brother valiantly got him and my mom from Vancouver on the last boat before the strike happened and back  home on Vancouver Island and into hospital.
 We decorated the IV tree and made sure there were christmas carols in the room. We sang Elvis and Boney M. We talked and laughed between the naps.

Dec 8 2003 he got to hold his grandkids and I had my last conversation with him. We talked about food which was fitting. He wanted chinese food and a massage! They had him on good drugs.

Dec 10 2003, my24th birthday, my hero, the first person to every hold me in his arms, the man who made every bad thing that ever happen go away. the man who taught me exactly what I wanted in a person to love for my life, died at 6 in the morning holding my hands and smiling at me.

December 13th there was a funeral that I had promised to sing at and couldnt do it.

December 24th there was a christmas I dont remember.
And the magic of December was destroyed. I was destroyed. I locked December away in a hole that I never wanted to look in again. It was the ultimate betrayal.

This was all 16 years ago tomorrow. I still find it hard to get the words on the page.

My life has gone on , not without challenge. I have been an mother and that has been the greatest joy. I have been happy for the most part. I have a great love in my life. A love that I often think he would have liked very much. But as for me, my light has been out. I became a nervous person. Bad things can and do happen and that actually came as a bit of a shock.

I have been horrible, I have been wonderful, but I have never ever been whole. There has been  a piece missing. The piece that is willing to dream for what I want in my life, the magic that told me that I really can do anything that I want. I was frozen in time that day, I did not want life to go on past that. How could I live in a world that would shatter that kind of happiness.

I guess the child in us never really grows up in some respects, We believe that our parents will slay dragons forever and before you know it you are the parent and there is no one left to ask what the right answer is.

So now, I am in my 16th broken December. I am turning 40, this seems unreal as I am still in that moment in my head. I am still 24. I feel like I missed so much of my life. A movie, something that I have watched or soaked with food and alcohol when I couldnt seem to seperate far enough from what I felt.
I have decided that I want my magic back.

So, how? I see it all around me.I go through the motions. I am tired of being nervous all the time, stressed to the max and assuming the worst possible outcome always. I have read all the books, I have tried mediation, I can talk the talk but when it comes right down to it, there have been times that I have felt truley alive over the past 16 years but they have been fleeting usually with my kiddos or in a moment of laughter with Dave. Or in the middle of the night when all is quiet and you can just almost feel like the world has stopped just for you to appreciate all that you have. When all you can hear is the breath of your love beside you and you fall asleep together. I have those moments, I am not totally cold inside.

But I dont finish anything, I dont go for what I want. I am bitterly afraid to be a sucess and I feel like I missed it. My daugher is turning 17 in February, my neice who is like my other daughter is turning 20. My mother has just turned 72 which comes with its own set of terror, I dont know what happens when I have to go through it all again.
So this year I want to dream. I want to finish things and more than anything I want to stop being afraid all the time.
A few solid things that come to mind. I do not love my job, I go and I do and I work with great people but I dont love it. I believe that I can work at home and make enough money to do what needs to be done.
I am a creator, and a writer. I love to knit and to make things with my hands, Creature comforts and jewlery with healing properties. Maybe that is all psychological but really isnt all healing and faith psychological?  I always have dreamt of writing a book when I have something to say, I want to sell my crafts so that they can spread comfort and healing to anyone who uses them.

Sounds good right? But I am just mediocer. That is not a slight on my self just thr truth that I never do anything all the way. I was not always that way . I have the drive and all the ideas but I never finish. I learned to knit years ago, it is a passion, I love the feel of the fibre between my fingers, the smell of the wool. I have never learned to do it well, never tackled a hard project and finished. This year I am going to learn to do it well. I am going to make the things that scare me, I am scared to fail, I am scared to suceed but beyond any of that I have come to realize I am scared to simply exist. I have done that for too long.

And I want to write a book, I feel that I finally have a thing to say. This is it I guess. Freckle face loser? well that is who I have been and ulitmatly also who I want to become.  The woman who can lose the anxiety, the grief, the fear of the unknown, the weight , the worry, the debt. These are the things that I plan to lose.
One day at a time, starting today. I had to put the story down. To say it out loud and look in the hole.
This year of 40 I may very well feel things that I dont want to, frankly I am doing that right now.I am going to feel it this time. I want to make up with December, so next year when it rolls around I can eat Black Forest Cake on December 3 and listen to Elvis and Boney-M. Put up the Christmas tree and look at the golfing Santa ornament without crying.  I want to do Christmas Markets with my wares, snuggle in a Onsie with my love, And enjoy the traditions that we have built over the last almost 10 years. I want to be in my life and stop being so afraid to die before I have lived it.

Life likley will not stop throwing things out there but I am determined to live each day this year. A year of yes, a year of possibility and a year of taking the chances. The quest for December.l

Now it is 11:18 am and in less than 24 hours I will be 40.
Dear 40, lets be losers this year.

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