Christmas Cards are the WORST

I know lots of people love holiday cards. They like planning their family picture and ordering them and sending them out to grace refrigerators everywhere. I used to really enjoy them. We kept talking about how nice it would be to send one out one year, but just didn’t really get around to it.

Now I regret that a bit. Because I don’t know that I will ever be able to send out a holiday card again.

Because whatever picture we send won’t be a picture of our family. If I send a picture of the four of us when Rowan was alive, it’s a really old picture. It’s not what we look like now. If I send one of Doc, Little Bird, and I…well, someone will always be missing from that photo.

So every time I get a card in the mail I start sobbing. I see all these happy families in all different sizes and shapes and I just grieve for the fact that my happy little family won’t be together like that again. Rowan won’t be sitting on his Dad’s shoulders while Little Bird and I are kicking up snow or some other bull shit holiday meme. No ugly sweaters.

Maybe one day I’ll feel like I will look at a family picture and feel like it’s “ok” or “right”…but I think that years away.

Christmas cards just remind me of why the holidays are so hard and all the beautiful Christmas memories I won’t ever get with my son.

Last Christmas, my son’s chest was open. I could see his lungs and heart. He was paralyzed. He wasn’t breathing on his own. He had 13 different tubes stuck in him.

That’s the only Christmas I got.

It’s heartbreaking.

That’s all.

Get Rid of Dry Skin

Ok, seriously excited about this!

I went to my allergist yesterday for a follow up and mentioned that my skin had been itching like crazy and would occasionally get really red and sort of rashy. I was worried I was allergic to something, but had started no new soaps/detergents/etc.

Dry skin. I’m taking antihistamines to manage my allergic responses while I’m receiving allergy shots and they can dry you out too. Plus it’s winter.

So my doc asked me my routine.

Shower. Lotion (something without fragrance).

His response.

Shower = oil afterwards

Through out the day = lotion

Water removes the oils from our skin so you want to replace the moisture with oil and then the oil also seals the moisture in. During the day, if your skin is dry you want to add moisture by using lotion. So last night I used olive oil after my shower and my arms went from itchy and patchy to 100% soft, smooth, and feeling fine.

Too good a change not to share. I will be trying this thing I read about where you whip oil with a mixer and it turns into a creamier substance (like body butter) that you can use for an easier application.

My favorite thing – evening shower, oil, satin pajamas.

Seriously.

I feel like a queen.

Trying to sort it all out…

So I’ve been writing again. It’s weird to say that looking back there are periods where I don’t know what happened. Events seem so bizarre or non-sensical that I can’t figure out how or why they happened. People’s reactions. Conversations that proved people were blind to what my life was…what Rowan’s life was. I almost felt like two people. There was the me that was living each day – full of light and warmth – content and peaceful. Then there was the me with the angry and bitter inner monologue that hated everyone and everything and resented more harshly than most.

So I’m trying to write it out. Trying to piece things together. What flipped the switch for me? Why did some people do what they did? Why were we so alone for so much of it?

It’s hard to tell. But at least I’m trying again.

It’s easier to understand where you are going if you understand where you’ve been.