Caregivers Support Group
A voluntary caregiver is a spouse, relative, friend or neighbor of a disabled person or child who assists with activities of daily living and assists those unable to fully take care of themselves. The challenges of a caregiver are unique and sometimes it's hard to find people to talk to who know what you're going through. Join the conversation and find others who...
So I have always loved Christmas but this year I am just not that into it. I have my moments of getting excited but then I am just to tired to deal with it. To much work for something that probably won't work out remotely close to how I picture it...but I still have to celebrate for the sake of my mother who's feeling kind of down at the moment..anyone esle feeling like this?
After years of my MIL's cruel and viciousness at the holidays, I started disliking them, and in some regards, downright disgusted to have to bear another holiday.
ALL our holidays were with my husband's mother. She was alone, so everything had to revolve around her needs, her wants, her.. her.. HER!
Then, the dementia bloom and her very intense illness. She came to stay with us to recouperate and have never gone home. That was years ago.
She upped the ante and took the opportunity to slice and dice me like a kitchen machine gone loco.
My husband sat back and in his usual fashion said, "give her time, she will get better".
Oh yeah? Guess what Bucko.. she's never gotten 'better'!
So, I live with the wicked witch of the universe and her son, the ever adoring and admiring man.. of his mother.
Oh, every once in a while he puts up a good front and supports me, but the truth is.. as much as he loves me, and I know he does, he is a whussy when it comes to his mother.
So, I can leave him or stay. So far, I have come close to leaving but obviously.. I AM HERE STILL.
He IS getting better.. but, truthfully, I have gone around a corner in our relationship and I can never look back to our life before his mother, it is now only a view that includes the old nasty woman.
However, I give her excellent care and take her beratings and umbrage all the time.
However, starting three Christmas times ago.. despite her dark and dour ways, I decided to do Christmas MY WAY..
And, I did.
Oh, she hates it! I bake cookies! I bake bread! I have cheery happy music throughout the house, I have TWO Christmas trees up and decorated! I sing, I dance, and I call old friends and giggle and enjoy memories and catching up with their lives.
I decided to blow her off the page and write my own book for my own life and my children and our precious grandchild.
She can wear her black and mumble and give nasty looks. She can act like an old country crone with a broom handle up her backside.. SO WHAT????
I have learned to ignore her.
I am back. I am coming back! I am going to love Christmas again, I am going to love all the Holidays again!
Everyone who is in our lives will be honored as a guest in our home and enjoyed.
For soooooo many years, I let that old hag set the tone of MY life.. and sometimes, dammit, she still does..
But, being miserable is HER choice, not mine.
And, trust me on this.. it took some serious getting up off my duff and overcoming the dark presence of my life being sucked down a hole to get to this point.
I am not always successful.. but dammit, I keep trying!
And, this Christmas.. I actually feel some happinesses.. instead of faking it.
It's taken, as I said, a few years, but I am DOING IT!
I say.. fake it until you make it.
Then.. MAKE IT!
Joyful and happy! Make your heart have room for a giggle and a tickle!
When my daughter first went blind, I was in utter despair trying to figure out what I was going to do for her. The one thing that my daughter always loved was the christmas tree and now she couldn't even see it, nor could she see the lights on it.
I choose to put it up anyway, every year for the last 3 years and the other night when we were both sitting in the recliners she said "Mom, I just love that little tree". How could you not love that comment? I made sure that I put on yellow lights because the visually impaired can see only yellow. She sees the lights, they may not be green, blue, red or any of the ones that she is used to seeing but they still make her remember the tree the way she used to see it. Sometimes we don't have to see with our eyes, we can see with our hearts.