Christmas: The Good, The Bad, and The Sometimes Sad...

Coming home this holiday season has been an emotional roller coaster.  There's a part of me that has enjoyed it because it's given me something to look forward to as Isaac and I prepare to relocate east in June.  This trip has assured me that moving east is the best move for not only me (career wise), but also for my son.  He's so happy when he's around my brother (Atticus is 4 months older than Isaac) and my mom.  He has such a deep love for my family and they for him.  I know that moving "home" will be insane, due to the sheer number of people in my parents 3 bedroom townhouse (8 people, 9 if you include Milo the giant wonder puppy).  So needless to say I'll only be in my parents home for a month at most (just until Isaac and I find an apartment in NY or DC).  But the excitement of moving home has grown over the past few days as I glimps (even just for a moment) the future and all it holds for us.

I've also had a few days of great snowboarding.  I know this might make me a serious nerd.  But snowboarding is so relaxing for me, (even when I find myself flat on my arse at the top of an advanced slope wondering how in heaven name I'm going to get down to the bottom).  The long lifts rides to the top allow me a lot of time to sit and think and dare I say have conversations with the one who is always listening.  He and I have had a lot to talk about as this year is coming to a close.  I found myself more than once in tears hanging over a mountain edge riding the lift wondering "how did I get here?  And where in Jesus name am I going?!"  Yet somehow by the time I found myself at the bottom of the mountain waiting in line to ride back up he had placed peace upon my heart just in time for another all out brawl on the way up again!

But this Christmas has been sad as well.  It's the first year that my grandfather isn't with us.  And it breaks my heart that my son never got to spend a Christmas with him (we were stuck in LA last year and he passed in May of this year!)  I watched as my grandmother cried when she saw a photo my mother had framed for her of my grandfather at the age of 21 in the Navy.  And it broke my heart, because while I'm feeling the sadness of being very much alone this holiday season, my grandmother for the first time in well over 50 years is alone this Christmas as well, and I can't imagine the feeling of loss she must have in her heart.  Her soul mate is gone and no one can ever replace him, and until the day she meets him again, she will feel that loss over and over again.

But this Christmas has been an emotional one.  I watched as my son gave a hug and kiss to every person who gave him a gift, after every gift (my mom got more than she could count).  And I thought to myself "he's a great kid, a kind kid, maybe, just maybe I'm doing something right, or wait maybe that's just him!"  

There are times when I doubt every decision I make.  Where I lose sight of the fact that I'm not running the show, I'm simply a passenger in the car.  More than once this holiday season I've attempted to take the wheel and get in the drivers seat and everytime, the reality of that decision has hit me like a brick wall, and it's all I can do to give him back the keys.  I'm a driver, I always have been.  I like to be in control, but this Christmas something I'm learning is that to succeed, to walk the life you are meant to walk, sometimes you have to give up control.  Sometimes you have to get lost to find yourself.  Sometimes you have to just know, and trust, and  have faith that he's gonna be there to guide your ever step through the good, through the bad, and through the sometimes sad.

Merry Christmas everyone!