Sometimes Life Happens

Somewhere between my house and the library

Remember that amazing cornish hen meal I was going to make? Didn't happen. My mother decided to spend the weekend with her boyfriend, my grandparents went to bed early, and Kyle spent a good portion of the evening playing games and being a teenager. Since I had the night to myself, I ate dinner out of a container, wrapped a few presents, and looked through a few early pictures I took. The one in this post is my favourite.

I also paid a few bills tonight which gave me some indigestion. The current state of the economy worries me. My neighbours are moving and, though I don't know the reason, I feel for them somehow. For all I know they struck the lottery and are moving to mansion but something about the emptying of a house makes me sad. I cringe whenever I see a "For Sale" sign or another garage sale. I actually thought of having a garage sale myself when I realized no one had money to buy my items and I'd rather have them go down with the ship. On a more personal note, I do feel as if I'm about to lose my grasp on things. I have yet to make a late payment on anything or make just the bare minimums but we're getting there. We're a huge household currently living on just my grandparents' benefits (long story) which is not even enough for the mortgage. Thank goodness we had money saved up because it's what has kept us going this long.

I'm not complaining, just venting. Is there a difference? I think so. I don't feel unfortunate, cursed, angry, upset...I do feel stressed and letting it all out through this medium helps. I can say things here I can't say to anyone in person. The homemaker of the family always seems to be the rock. I'm the soother, the nurturer; I check for fevers and keep the creepy things in the dark at bay. because of that, I feel like I'm letting someone down when I myself feel a sense of fear. But we're fine. That's what I keep telling myself and right now it's still the truth.

We are better off than so many in the community, so many in the world, that my throat locks whenever I feel like whining. Sometimes I feel the sigh rise up in my lungs and it stops itself before it ever reaches my lips; I think of my grandparents. They didn't cross a sea with little but the clothing on their backs for me to weep. They didn't go hungry so I could snack on Doritos and whimper about how I have nothing. I didn't sleep on floors, get passed around from home to home, live with all of my belonging in a bag so years later my biggest concern would be the interest on a mortgage or whether Visa has been paid on time. I think of all this and pull myself up by my bootstraps, repeat my mantra ("If there's a roof over our head and food in our stomachs we're fine"), and go on with life. The desperation never reaches my lips.

I guess it reaches my fingertips sometimes. That's okay...

As long as it's only sometimes.