Tonight is Christmas Eve and in my selfishness I am so very grateful this season is almost over. This year is so different from last and this year has been one of the most difficult holidays I can remember having in years. I am grateful for the very few friends I have that have been there for me and offered me a safe place and encouraging words. In the times of sadness, grief and self pity they have held me and rocked me and allowed me to be exactly where I am and also not allowed me to be in the isolation and self destruction that by myself ..is exactly where I would be.  It has been a long few months and I have made so many mistakes that most of the time my hopelessness …..feels to heavy and to overwhelming to climb out of.  I try to have hope to be positive to believe that Gods plan will be better than any plan I could think of, but I also have not done a very good job of following Gods will or trusting God.  There are many things in my life I am grateful for and deep down I believe there must me a small bit of me that loves myself  and keeps trudging and though I give up…I always somehow manage by Gods Grace to not completely give up.

The truth is that it is a miracle that I am alive and through this difficult time I have at least shown up in person even though my spirit feels defeated and distant. I really want to be loving and giving and trusting and get out of myself and do something big in this life and be something more than I have ever allowed myself to be. It has become so obvious that some of my fear lies in lack of connection. I don’t feel as though I have been ever truly connected with another, there is always a distance I feel or create. No one knows the real me and I don’t allow the real me an opportunity to show itself. My soul cries out to be seen and yet with every chance I push away those that I crave to show. Strangely enough I believe after years of work on this and years of not believing, I believe I am worthy of Gods love and loved by God and that in itself is a miracle and so that is a start.

I don’t know my plans for tomorrow and really I just want Christmas over, but I am going to do my best to show up for others and to get out of myself long enough to do right by others.

The 26th my son would be 16 years old. He died from SIDS three months later, but that will always be the very best Christmas present and will always be the very best Christmas memory I have. I would like to honor him and his memory some way this year, even if it is just by praying to God and praying to him and spending some time allowing the memory to live and experiencing the greatest and truest love that I have ever felt….

I hope that if anyone does actually read this…that they have a happy holiday and that the ugly memories that haunt some of us at least for a few moments may be relieved and that for just a few seconds that each of us can be filled with peace and the presence of something much deeper than this life and than human love…..May God bless you…