Originally Written by the13thcynic
December 22, 2009 at 3:14 AM
Saturday the girls woke me up to make our run up to the food bank for our ‘Holiday Boxes’. We had to fill out all the paperwork and pre-register of course. I try not to use the food bank unless I really have to. There’s always someone who has it worse. If I can make it through, I make it through. The Xmas boxes are very much like the Thanksgiving ones were, can of pumpkin, canned cranberry, box of instant potatoes, corn, stuffing and a turkey, evaporated milk, frozen pie crust and even a can of black olives (I LOVE olives!) and eggs (we’re having deviled eggs!). My oldest got theirs as well, so we decided to cook hers tomorrow, mine on Xmas (she’s not sure if she’ll make it over then, she has other family to see) and on Christmas Eve I’m cooking a nice roast I got on a great sale thanks to a friend who gave me a lovely gift of some money I spent very responsibly, I might add. Laundry, groceries, household needs (toilet paper!) and a couple of small things to add to the Grandbabies’ Christmas bags. Toby even got a present, a pack of marrow bones usually used to flavor cooking, but perfect for him :) he currently has 2 rolling around the living room somewhere and the cats had some canned food and have an empty box of which Kevin is taking full advantage of, along with a plastic shopping bag he found. We try & hide them from them, he chews holes in them and we use ‘em for trash bags, plus fights with them and drags them all over the apt making a total racket usually while I’m sleeping.
So tonight I did some cleaning and prep work for the first family dinner tomorrow (which is technically later today), which consisted of pulling all the dirt out of the current vacuum bag so I could re-use it again, again. Probably the 4th time for this one. I always put off little things like that to buy, those few dollars always seem to be needed for food sooner rather than later.
I had my gas bill for 2 days B4 I opened it, and I was right, it doubled. But it does every Winter and it’s not as bad as Summer when the A/C is running all the time, then it almost triples. I live in an upstairs apt, the Sun hits the bedroom windows which helps in the Winter (when there is Sun) but keeps us toasty in Summer, as well as the Summer position which hits the kitchen window & sliding glass doors/porch…makes it hot, wish the Sun got over there in the Winter.
Well, that was a lot of babble. But, I have re-christened this my Therapy Blog and like they say, you can always change the channel.
Lastly, the Day After Christmas party has been weighing on my mind…my Mom’s Christmas money came today (bought more groceries, house stuff) which wasn’t much (was almost the same amount my Secret Santa Friend gave me, so still in the double digits) because of the loan she sent me almost 2 months ago. We loaded up & got ourselves to Wal-Mart to see what we could see. I’ve been stressing on what to wear, I honestly don’t have anything nice that I fit into anymore and even at WM getting something just for that night would have seriously cut into my cash-on-hand and I decided to just make the dinners here a bit nicer instead.
Unfortunately my kids are used to getting ‘late’ Christmas presents. I always need to make up for the serious lacking on Xmas day with New Years gifts. People wouldn’t believe that I actually can’t get my kids something to have on actual Christmas Day, I guess it does sound incomprehensible. But when you live penny to penny, it happens. I have never gone to Sub For Santa, because, like above, there are ppl who need it more. My girls get stuff from the other family members and I do what I can in January. I really wish I could make it be different…I did to an extent last year. I managed to mail off a gift card to my Grandson on time and everything, but I took out the loan that necessitated my Mom helping me pay it off…
I was thinking to myself that I try and keep Christmas all year, in that when I have extra, I don’t hesitate to get the kids something they need or want. I just like that happy look on their faces when they get something out of the blue. I’d rather have that scattered throughout the year than just one day. I do what I can for them aside from monetary things as well, and I’m sorry, but I give what I can, do what I can and I just can’t make it fall on this one particular day every year. I do feel it’s not ‘fair’ to my girls… this is why people get so depressed and just want to give up on life this time of year. I know it gets horrible for me. I’ve been doing pretty good actually, until today. I could actually even feel that black hopeless, desperate feeling start from the top of my head and just sink down into me, all the way to the floor. I’m trying to convince myself it’s just all the commercialism and societal pressure…but my girls. For once I just wanted a ‘normal’ Christmas for them, and yet again, a failure.
Oh, and about the party. Besides nothing really presentable to wear, I don’t have anything to bring for anybody, nothing to contribute to the food and nothing to contribute to the alcohol. Also glaring at me is the fact that all these people whom I went to High School with, most never really even hung out with or knew besides a name, are in a social class higher than myself and it is glaringly obvious to me, and I’m sure it will be to them. I feel out of my element.
I once heard a Gold-digger on a talk show talking about how she could tell a man had money, she said ‘His shoes…’ and the same went for females as well. I’ve tried it out some and found it interesting, looking at ppls shoes to guess their status & money situation.
I have a pair of 6 year old Reeboks that my youngest daughters Father sent to her, she didn’t like them and gave them to me.
I know my station in life. I know what happens when I try and step out of it. I think I’m pushing my luck. I always used to have someone in the same ’situation’ as a friend to share this with, we’d both talk about needing a ride to the food bank, not having anything to wear out even if we wanted to go out somewhere, having to use the laundry quarters for milk & bread…4 years ago I had to break away from those friends. I think it’s gnawing on my mind & spirit to keep it all cooped up. So here I have you, my Therapy Blog.
Would I cease to exist if I made this private? Would it help me any less if I couldn’t at least pretend someone somewhere read it and either felt better about their own life or helped someone else just once because they remembered not everybody has it as good as they might. There’s always someone worse off…I know I need to remember that too.
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