We’re officially in the thick of Thanksgiving break with all the kids home from school. My week has been surprisingly loaded up with appointments, so it’s not like we’ve been stuck with nothing to do.
For the first time in…well, since we moved to Texas like 10 years ago, Thanksgiving will look just a bit different this year.
My brother, who just came for a visit in October, won’t be coming until Christmas this year. Which I’m fine with. I don’t personally care about Thanksgiving, so it’s not a big deal to me if he misses it.
My sister, who…is not a person I like, at all, is shockingly not going to be here this year either. She recently had surgery on her hip, so whether or not that’s playing into the decision, I’m not entirely sure. But I’m sure not upset about it.
I still have no idea if she’ll be coming down for Christmas or not, but I’ll at least take this small win. Maybe I can not hate Thanksgiving this year so much with the gift of her absence.
Another first this year is the fact that Derek’s mom (an actively practicing Jehovah’s Witness) and her new finance will be coming for Thanksgiving. Because of her being a Jehovah’s Witness, she’s never celebrated any holiday or birthday with us. Which is fine, we don’t really care or mind one way or another, and she lives in our same town so we do see her pretty often.
Our parents get along fine, but it will be the first time meeting the new fiancée for me and my parents. Derek and the kids have met him, but I haven’t. So, I’m just hoping that everyone gets along and no one says anything problematic or whatever.
I’m really not nervous about Thanksgiving this year, although it is a day I don’t particularly like in general.
The win is that my sister won’t be here.
The loss is closing the gap between now and Christmas. I feel like I’m running out of time, and money is especially completely nonexistent this year.
My 2 older boys both have winter birthdays too, with Phoenix turning 6 just in 2 weeks! So money is tight and stress is high and the winter season is hurting my heart just a bit extra this year.
But for today, I’m just trying to survive this fall break.
Today is PT and dentist appointments and surviving.
Tomorrow will be frantically cleaning to appease my mom, I’m sure. And Thursday will be pure chaos.
I’m in survival mode 100%. My body is breaking down on me, and I’m just pleading with my brain to hold strong, despite its active pull to shut down along with my body.
Tomorrow night I’ll have therapy with Becky, and even though it’s new, it’s starting to become something more familiar. And I guess that’s the first step towards accepting it as a new form of normal.
I’m not expecting tomorrow to be easy, and having a new therapist going into the holidays isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. But I’ll show up, I’ll get it done, and I’ll process and prepare more for that in tomorrow’s post.
For today, I just need to get through the day.
Phoenix is currently laying on the floor while Atlas has PT, so really, I guess nothing too out of the ordinary is going on here after all.
