Christmas then and now

this story is told with old photographs. i cannot afford a camera. don't know when i'll be getting one to update you on my Bunny, on me. so i have gone back in and found old photos to explain what words cannot convey.this is me now. i am deflated. unstuffed as it were. i am a weary Bunny that life has and is kicking the stuffing out of.

this was Christmas before. i got to be with my children. in fact, that Santa is me. my children did not know it was me. i had a wonderful time. i used to love Christmas. i still do but it's more of a Whoville without the presents kind of feeling.
Christmas is sacred and i won't impose my beliefs on you.

Christmas now is like below. i get back from work and i am wiped out. yet i still have to get back up after a brief break and get to work. and now a phone call tonight just blew my Christmas apart again.
i do not know when i will ever get my son to come to me for Christmas. his father, and now this year his girlfriend, commandeer Christmas and i never get to be with him. years like this. years. i feel smaller and smaller each year. he admitted to me that he hates it being this way but he knows i love him and always will. he trusts me, he said, and hates hurting me but he knows i will never hold this against him. he goes with the person and to the person who can hurt him if he does not cooperate.

so the phone call tonight that has further taken Christmas away? my daughter and son-in-law have to go to his mother's for Christmas. my daughter had to tell her that i needed to be invited otherwise i would not get to see them at all. i would be alone on Christmas. so i was grudgingly invited.

i did not cry on the phone. my daughter wants to see me and i want to see her. my work schedule has been such that i have not gotten to see her in 2 weeks. so i am going in my own car so that when it gets too tense, i will leave. it is this other woman's house and she is very much Queen. it will be her family around and i quite simply will not exist.

one day a year. Christmas. and i put so much in store on it. and i keep bowing my head to make sure my children are not under any more pressure than they already are. but i am getting older. i feel older. i feel tired. i simply want one Christmas. just one. one more. that's all. one to remember forever. one where there is no pain, no pressure, no being so alone that i feel like the whole world died instead of just my husband who would do anything for me.

i just want one Christmas.

but i have my pack. a new Three Musketeers has evolved from the ashes.
Scootie Wootums, me, and Carmen Sophia. we are a pack. they love me. they trust me. i can be angry and they come to me. i can walk in the door deflated and beaten down in spirit, and they believe in me. i can be sick and they never leave my side. i see their loyalty. i watched them mourn, and still mourn, our Dragon. Scootie still goes to the closet to get his shoe to lay on the floor with his nose inside it. and Carmen puts her paw on it laying side-by-side. they miss him as i do. together in bed, they stretch out beside me so that, if i need to get up for a drink or to go to the rest room, they follow me. then we get snuggled back together. they are with me in this tiny place no matter what part of the apartment i go to. they lay on the bath mat when i take a shower.

they do not worry how they look or how they will be perceived. they mourn and they feel joy in the day. both emotions so close together. they are in touch with their feelings to a degree that we as humans fight against and probably shouldn't. they miss our Dragon but they are happy to be with me. their dejection when i have to leave for work breaks my heart. they seem to understand when i say, "i have tomorrow off!" they are thrilled. this is not appreciation for m as their caretaker. i truly believe they love me. me. me as i am. me. imperfections and all. me. tired and broken and deflated,

and unstuffed. they love me. and i love them.

and we love Dragon who is not here.
maybe i don't get to have Christmas because i am not really home. i haven't been home in years. i am not where i should be. i am not a family. well, i am a family of 1, or 3 if you let me count my dogs.

but my children have other people in their lives they have to appease. it just seems a shame that these people have to BE appeased.

it is my gift to them to not demand to be appeased. i have no hoops for them to jump through. i do not snap my fingers. i love my children and just want to be with them when they are free to be with me.

but i wonder where home is? Dragon? will home one day be with you? or will i be lost to the darkness still? will i be doomed to forever roam, never having a true home? will i ever feel safe and at peace? at least i know one thing for sure. Scootie Wootums and Carmen Sophia will probably wait for me and follow me into the dark, or the light, or whatever waits a deflated, unstuffed, unimportant Bunny like me.