Heart Broken

There’s a TikTok that’s going around that says something like, “Will my kids look back and think that mom did her best to make the holidays magical or will they only remember her being stressed out and yelling.” I know the answer. And it breaks my heart. I have tried my hardest to make Christmas magical for my kids. I’ve always failed. Neither child has ever seen Christmas as a magical time. In fact, one is constantly disappointed with the holiday. Disappointed in what we haven’t done. Disappointed in gifts not received. Disappointed that we travel. Disappointed when we aren’t going to travel. Disappointed that we don’t have huge family gatherings. Disappointed that we are going to be forced to see family for the first time ever. Disappointed that everything on the Christmas list was received but didn’t get the thing that wasn’t on the list but everyone else got. I’m set up to fail the moment I even start to try.

Some people will say I have to do more. Some people will say I have to do less. I speak from experience when I say it doesn’t matter what I do, I can’t win. It’s always been hard trying to make Christmas magical when we’re not home. We couldn’t decorate a rental house, nor did we want to spend the money to buy decorations that we’d basically just throw away. We couldn’t bake cookies because most of the houses didn’t come with baking sheets or even mixing bowls. We would try to cram these “traditions” in the crazy busy weeks leading up to us leaving.

Don’t get me wrong. We always made the best of everything. When Santa left stockings, the kids were thrilled. When we would swim every Christmas day, the kids loved it. Nightly beach walks became “tradition”

Time marches on though and things change. The Christmas day swimming isn’t quite as fun when it’s just with your sibling and dad. The walks on the beach need to be photographed and documented for social media. Just stockings didn’t really cut it when everyone they know posts pictures of all their gifts.

This year, already, I’ve been told that we have no Christmas traditions. I have failed Christmas before it’s even started. And this was the last Christmas before the boy goes to college. So, I have failed to make Christmas magical for my family. And it breaks my heart.

This year has aged and broken me in ways that will never be repaired. There’s not one thing that I can pinpoint, but I do know when it snowballed. Maybe if I were different and didn’t feel guilty asking for help. Maybe if my family situation were different and I had any kind of support. Maybe if I would have been more assertive in years past. Maybe if I didn’t have anxiety. Maybe….things wouldn’t have gotten to this point. But there’s no point in maybe’s. Yes, the maybe’s keep me up at night and make me want to curl into a ball and sleep all day, but they don’t do any good. Things are what they are and we make choices on how to best deal with the now. The problem lies with how shattered I’ve been left this year that I can’t even make the choices I need to make. No matter what I choose, it's not enough. I can’t keep up with the pace things are moving. Heck, I wouldn’t be able to keep up even if things were moving at a snail's pace. It’s as if I’m trying to run while under water.