Last year Hope was here for Thanksgiving. I was so on edge that I had to get something for anxiety from my doctor. I was so tired that I ached all over. I cried daily. Hope was probably scared nearly to death and was acting out in ways I just wasn’t prepared for at the time. I wondered what the hell I was doing with this adoption thing. And of course, I dropped the Thanksgiving turkey at the end of the night right at my front door. The Furry One was delighted. I sobbed.
A year later, Hope is legally my daughter. We are building a life together. The Furry One is waiting for me at the Rainbow Bridge. Seventy percent of the time I am bumping up against something resembling happy, kinda anyway. Some days, even weeks are really, really awesome. And some weeks are just, well, sh*tty.
As we slide into the next Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the ups, especially during the downs. I am grateful that we have moved from just surviving. I’m grateful that we occasionally thrive. I find it hard to be grateful for the downs. We are experiencing a down period right now. I’m feeling lots of icky emotions, including a bit of holiday dread. It doesn’t help that I can barely stop dropping tears over what happened last night in Ferguson, MO or that the field trip I chaperoned this morning was so disorganized that it was somewhat traumatizing or that I miss my dog so very much right now. I’ve got the blues, and the blues are contagious.
It feels like 20 steps forward, 7 steps back. Oh sure we’re way ahead, but the setbacks…they somehow just linger and hurt like a million paper cuts, making it hard to remember that I’m still ahead by 13 steps.
So, as I prepare to celebrate my and Hope’s second Thanksgiving together, I’m a little emotional and not in the way I hoped. I know we will soon again be on the upswing. I just want to have a happy holiday. It would be really nice. I would be really, really thankful.
November 25th, 2014 at 11:04 pm
Wishing you and Hope a wonderful holiday season!! And congrats on your one year anniversary of being together! 🙂
November 26th, 2014 at 5:31 am
Thanks.
December 1st, 2014 at 9:07 am
We’ve found holidays are really hard for our gal and they’ve always been a bit hard for me too. So everyone is reacting to one another and everything and all over the place – no fun. But it gets a bit better, 13 steps, even tiny ones, can make a huge difference even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.
December 1st, 2014 at 10:30 am
Thanks. It’s hard to see the light in this short tunnel, but it is helpful to know that other folks experience this as well.