Christmas 2024
Dec. 25th, 2024 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apachefirecatI'm not sure who may need to hear/read this this morning, but it won't leave my mind to do a post about how thankful I am this Christmas. I have plenty to moan, groan, and bitch about, but instead, even as I tired as I am from the last few days, all I can feel is a spirit of immense Gratitude.
I thank the good Lord above it, and I'm sure some of y'all are getting tired of those posts, but I just can't help but to be amazed and wowed and thankful to God for all He's been doing in my life.
I'm going to set the Christianity to the side for a moment, though, as I list the things I'm thankful for. I know where my thanks is owed, but I'm hoping that maybe by sharing some things here some of y'all, Christian or not, may be able to look into your lives and find some silver linings. :)
There are mentions of abuse in the below cut!
Before I met my husband, I was abused badly. Some of you know the story; some of you don't. But I was basically my mother's slave in so many ways. I'm still having to take care of her, because she literally has no one else and will be turning 70 next month. She's also a disabled veteran. And let me tell you, if you don't have veterans in your family or your vets are some of the few "lucky" ones, we as a country owe not only a debt of thanks to our veterans who have fought willingly but also to their families. No one knows the trauma that vets are put through better than their families. I dare say even other vets may not recognize it as much, because people have a tendency to hide from their own fears, traumas, and harsh truths. Those of us who have to care for them see not only the physical ailments they're labelled with for the rest of their lives, but also the things, like PTSD and other things that twist their minds, that run deeper and affect not only them but everyone around them.
I lost my Father in 2015, having never really opened myself up to him in large part because of the way I was trained by my mother. My Great Aunt, who was and is and shall remain the best person I've ever had the honor of knowing, passed in the following February. We'd all thought she was staying to bury her final brother-in-law, having buried all her own siblings, all the rest of her husband's siblings, all her children, all their parents... Instead, my Daddy was the last one she buried before leaving this world herself. We would not have had the money to bury my Father if not for my Aunt Georgia, and for those who haven't had to suffer through being responsible for burying a loved one, they do NOT make it easy to do so.
We'd had no idea how we were going to handle Daddy's death, and of course didn't want the state to just take him and do whatever with his remains, until my Great Aunt showed up and told us she was going with us to the funeral home. She then popped out a check before we could say anything... Aunt Georgia always said Daddy was the best Sunday school teacher she'd ever known, in all her 90+ years of living and worshipping.
I really am so grateful to that woman for that and other reasons, and in such admiration of her, and I truly wish I had spent more time with her while she was living. She never seemed to be going to disappear until she suddenly died, having a heart attack after having went to town twice in one day for, I presume, other people. She was a paragon of goodness. We had people STANDING in the church to attend her funeral. A truer mortal Angel has never graced this Earth.
I've come to realize, in the last few months, that I had a screen addiction. I HATED my life growing up. Daddy was alcoholic and was abusive in all ways other than physically and sexually. Mother/Wanda/Andrew treated me like a Queen but then crafted me into not just her best friend and "mini me" but into her lover and wife, thinking that it was my place in this life to take care of her until she died and then take our cats to a no-kill shelter and kill myself. I very nearly did just that in '19 when she shot herself and tried her best to put it on my husband and me.
It's a wonder that that incredible man ever came back to me, but he did. He's also known far more than his share of his abuse, and we've both since been abused and mistreated by his mother and grandmother (also a vet), while my mother SEEMS to have done a 360. Do NOT get me wrong. I do not trust her. I can NOT trust her. But she has been there for Jordan and me ever since he insisted on allowing her back into our lives in '20. I am NOT just saying that. We were out for a meal at the local Chinese restaurant when he saw her going into the Dollar Tree next door. He started hollering at her, and I did EVERYTHING in my power to pull him away, get him in the car, and get the heck gone before she could see us.
But he broke free and ran after her, and ever since, she's had both our backs. She'll even take his side over mine in most arguments, but I guess in a way, that's not only a good thing but perhaps hearkens back to the fact that he is the reason she's back in our lives. His grandmother, on the other hand, has unfortunately caused us to lose housing MANY times throughout covid and even after, to the point that we're back on my Daddy's old land. The old house, the one in which I grew up in, was destroyed by Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina, and the trailer in which we lived afterwards is literally tilted on its side from when someone tried to steal it during everything that went on in '19. We also lost all the cats in '19, because I was basically on the run, Wanda was in the hospital, and no shelter would take them. I did the best thing I could at the time, and took them to a creek in the woods.
I HAVE seen a couple of them since, but don't know and really don't want to think about the ultimate fate of the others... Bear in mind too that Wanda was losing kittens left and right under mysterious circumstances prior to shooting herself in '19, and I did see her literally hit our oldest tom (King Jackeesy) more than once.
Since '22, we have been back on Daddy's land, living in storage houses. We have the bare minimum of electricity and no running water. We did have running water for a while, but never could get hot water running and every time we turned around were having to replace the pump. Turned out the smaller pump kept getting fried because it wasn't big/strong enough for the old, but still clearly good, well.
Like I said, there's A LOT I could bitch about. But instead, all I can think of this morning is how grateful I am. I got about 6 hours of sleep Monday night, MAYBE a little more than that Sunday night despite waking up in the early morning hours being extremely sick to my gut, and less than that last night as I left here (work) at 11pm and then had to be back at 8 this morning. On Christmas Day. I would've BITCHED about this at one point in my life, but again, I just can't help being thankful for all the blessings I DO have.
I have my husband, and despite all his flaws (and trust me, he has plenty, we both do :)), I am so thankful to have him and his love in my life. Our families had successfully split us up in '19, but every time I went to church and asked God for answers, every single time, something about the Jordan River would come up. He IS my Jordan River, my soul mate, my little King on this Earth, and I am SO GRATEFUL for him. <3 <3 <3 There was a really bad batch there between us for a long time, I admit, but he's given up drinking and works his ass off at a job that never appreciates him. He had a GREAT job when we were in 'cola, working at the base, but we could never get housing there. That's part of the reason we're not even really trying to fix the water (just going to fill jugs at a local creek and using them for everything -- I am STILL bathing, mind you, even in freezing temperatures, and that's another thing I'm grateful for, that I CAN still stay clean despite everything!). We're hoping to buy a place closer to 'cola. There is NO fixing the old house or trailer.
My mother is still alive and in arguably good health, despite being down to 1.5 feet. I actually have an adult relationship with my mother now, AS my mother. She's a pain in my ass, and I'm constantly reprimanding her and battling against the spirits of the past, but I AM thankful to have this opportunity with her before she dies. Even if I would have celebrated her death at one point. '19 was bad, incredibly bad for all of us, and I am so thankful we all lived through it and have come to excel far beyond it.
I have a new batch of kitties, mostly orange. We seriously have more ginger toms now than I ever thought one family would have, especially since most of them are NOT related!
I have a FANTASTIC job with a career where I am actually excelling and can see us being able to pay off stuff and actually (hopefully) being able to buy our own place one day.
I lost my car too, my beautiful Grand Mercury, but the little girl I do have, a '16 Chevy Sonic, holds up well, especially considering she has to do double duty, driving both her "father" and me to work and back every day.
I am in better health now than probably ever before in my life. In '18, before Jordan and I met in that Winter, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I had to have an ovary out. The doctor who removed it (and who has since, sadly, retired) said that it was so huge and had so filled up my insides that if it had not been taken out then and had grown even an inch more, it would have tilted over and killed me on the spot. I've had some women issues since, and three miscarriages, even another cyst, but the second cyst that troubled me for so long just eventually vanished. As for the kids, we do have feline kids, and one dog, and honestly, the more I see of other women and their kids, the less I think I'd ever have the patience! LOL Besides, I have plenty of people in my life who are basically grown kids who were never reached when they were children, and I honestly feel like that's part of my calling, to try to reach or help reach some of those adult children in our area. My company really is doing great things for a lot of the families in our area, and I work with many such kids that may well never have been reached if not for Provalus.
I am actually using my degree now and making good money. I am officially ITF certified, as of earlier this year, and am slowly beginning to work towards a Networking degree. I can seriously see myself continuing in the IT field no matter where our lives may lead us, and despite the woes of my job (all jobs have them!), this is, HANDS DOWN, the BEST job I have EVER been blessed to have! I don't even miss WalMart any more, and that WAS the best job I'd had and the job I had in 'cola that I loved so much!
Speaking of being in good health, I am actually losing weight and actually wore a sweater today that dates back to my college days and was even a bit tight back then! And they may not be the best of clothes, but I DO like my fashion sense and most of my wardrobe and actually have boots that fit again! Something I'd not really had except in costumes since I was a kid. I also could never wear them to work as a cashier -- I always had to use old "clod hoppers", as my Daddy called them -- but now, I get to wear them and a nice skirt every day I work. :)
I also may not have friends that I trust, but I DO have allies and I have people who SEEM to respect me. I have people who come to me for advice, and have a nice work and church life now. I even have neighbors with whom I talk from time to time now, instead of always thinking they're talking about me behind my back or even ridiculing me to my face. My parents weren't the only abusive ones to me growing up... I was literally made fun of by every other kid in my school, from the Kindergarteners on up, but I have also come to realize that it was because they didn't know what to make of my brain and, like the mutants I love so much, my differences -- my refusal to bow down to what they thought was okay, from killing animals and hating on gays and others who were different to simply not indulging in so much of the distasteful things most people do (drugs, wanton sex, overindulgence in alcohol, etc.), my morales, and my intellect -- made them uncomfortable, so they felt the need to lash out.
And as I've heard so often in my life, school was the best time for a lot of them. Now, however, I've come into my own, and I seriously could not have seen any of this happening, but I am living a preordained life and it is not meant for me to see God's plans until they come to fruitition. It's not meant for me to know what's going to happen, and I'm okay with that. After all, I couldn't have possibly imagined meeting my husband until we met. I couldn't possibly have imagined how my life would improve, or even that it would in or after, for the longest time, '19. It's frustrating that we don't have running water, that we're living in a storage house still -- But I am still so VERY THANKFUL for all the blessings we DO have!
As we celebrate Christmas, or whatever other Winter holidays, may be near and dear to your hearts, and move into the new year (2025 DOES sound futuristic!!), I find myself marveling and ever more grateful for how my life has turned out, and I hope that reading of my journey may help you in yours, if for no other reason than to find your own silver linings in this world and life. We're not meant to be here, not forever. We are meant to go home, or go to final resting place, and that's okay. But it's also okay -- it's MEANT to be -- that we get to enjoy our journeys along the way. <3
Thank you, God! Thank you, my friends, for reading and for sharing this trip with me! And here's to all the best for us all in 2025 and beyond!!
I thank the good Lord above it, and I'm sure some of y'all are getting tired of those posts, but I just can't help but to be amazed and wowed and thankful to God for all He's been doing in my life.
I'm going to set the Christianity to the side for a moment, though, as I list the things I'm thankful for. I know where my thanks is owed, but I'm hoping that maybe by sharing some things here some of y'all, Christian or not, may be able to look into your lives and find some silver linings. :)
There are mentions of abuse in the below cut!
Before I met my husband, I was abused badly. Some of you know the story; some of you don't. But I was basically my mother's slave in so many ways. I'm still having to take care of her, because she literally has no one else and will be turning 70 next month. She's also a disabled veteran. And let me tell you, if you don't have veterans in your family or your vets are some of the few "lucky" ones, we as a country owe not only a debt of thanks to our veterans who have fought willingly but also to their families. No one knows the trauma that vets are put through better than their families. I dare say even other vets may not recognize it as much, because people have a tendency to hide from their own fears, traumas, and harsh truths. Those of us who have to care for them see not only the physical ailments they're labelled with for the rest of their lives, but also the things, like PTSD and other things that twist their minds, that run deeper and affect not only them but everyone around them.
I lost my Father in 2015, having never really opened myself up to him in large part because of the way I was trained by my mother. My Great Aunt, who was and is and shall remain the best person I've ever had the honor of knowing, passed in the following February. We'd all thought she was staying to bury her final brother-in-law, having buried all her own siblings, all the rest of her husband's siblings, all her children, all their parents... Instead, my Daddy was the last one she buried before leaving this world herself. We would not have had the money to bury my Father if not for my Aunt Georgia, and for those who haven't had to suffer through being responsible for burying a loved one, they do NOT make it easy to do so.
We'd had no idea how we were going to handle Daddy's death, and of course didn't want the state to just take him and do whatever with his remains, until my Great Aunt showed up and told us she was going with us to the funeral home. She then popped out a check before we could say anything... Aunt Georgia always said Daddy was the best Sunday school teacher she'd ever known, in all her 90+ years of living and worshipping.
I really am so grateful to that woman for that and other reasons, and in such admiration of her, and I truly wish I had spent more time with her while she was living. She never seemed to be going to disappear until she suddenly died, having a heart attack after having went to town twice in one day for, I presume, other people. She was a paragon of goodness. We had people STANDING in the church to attend her funeral. A truer mortal Angel has never graced this Earth.
I've come to realize, in the last few months, that I had a screen addiction. I HATED my life growing up. Daddy was alcoholic and was abusive in all ways other than physically and sexually. Mother/Wanda/Andrew treated me like a Queen but then crafted me into not just her best friend and "mini me" but into her lover and wife, thinking that it was my place in this life to take care of her until she died and then take our cats to a no-kill shelter and kill myself. I very nearly did just that in '19 when she shot herself and tried her best to put it on my husband and me.
It's a wonder that that incredible man ever came back to me, but he did. He's also known far more than his share of his abuse, and we've both since been abused and mistreated by his mother and grandmother (also a vet), while my mother SEEMS to have done a 360. Do NOT get me wrong. I do not trust her. I can NOT trust her. But she has been there for Jordan and me ever since he insisted on allowing her back into our lives in '20. I am NOT just saying that. We were out for a meal at the local Chinese restaurant when he saw her going into the Dollar Tree next door. He started hollering at her, and I did EVERYTHING in my power to pull him away, get him in the car, and get the heck gone before she could see us.
But he broke free and ran after her, and ever since, she's had both our backs. She'll even take his side over mine in most arguments, but I guess in a way, that's not only a good thing but perhaps hearkens back to the fact that he is the reason she's back in our lives. His grandmother, on the other hand, has unfortunately caused us to lose housing MANY times throughout covid and even after, to the point that we're back on my Daddy's old land. The old house, the one in which I grew up in, was destroyed by Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina, and the trailer in which we lived afterwards is literally tilted on its side from when someone tried to steal it during everything that went on in '19. We also lost all the cats in '19, because I was basically on the run, Wanda was in the hospital, and no shelter would take them. I did the best thing I could at the time, and took them to a creek in the woods.
I HAVE seen a couple of them since, but don't know and really don't want to think about the ultimate fate of the others... Bear in mind too that Wanda was losing kittens left and right under mysterious circumstances prior to shooting herself in '19, and I did see her literally hit our oldest tom (King Jackeesy) more than once.
Since '22, we have been back on Daddy's land, living in storage houses. We have the bare minimum of electricity and no running water. We did have running water for a while, but never could get hot water running and every time we turned around were having to replace the pump. Turned out the smaller pump kept getting fried because it wasn't big/strong enough for the old, but still clearly good, well.
Like I said, there's A LOT I could bitch about. But instead, all I can think of this morning is how grateful I am. I got about 6 hours of sleep Monday night, MAYBE a little more than that Sunday night despite waking up in the early morning hours being extremely sick to my gut, and less than that last night as I left here (work) at 11pm and then had to be back at 8 this morning. On Christmas Day. I would've BITCHED about this at one point in my life, but again, I just can't help being thankful for all the blessings I DO have.
I have my husband, and despite all his flaws (and trust me, he has plenty, we both do :)), I am so thankful to have him and his love in my life. Our families had successfully split us up in '19, but every time I went to church and asked God for answers, every single time, something about the Jordan River would come up. He IS my Jordan River, my soul mate, my little King on this Earth, and I am SO GRATEFUL for him. <3 <3 <3 There was a really bad batch there between us for a long time, I admit, but he's given up drinking and works his ass off at a job that never appreciates him. He had a GREAT job when we were in 'cola, working at the base, but we could never get housing there. That's part of the reason we're not even really trying to fix the water (just going to fill jugs at a local creek and using them for everything -- I am STILL bathing, mind you, even in freezing temperatures, and that's another thing I'm grateful for, that I CAN still stay clean despite everything!). We're hoping to buy a place closer to 'cola. There is NO fixing the old house or trailer.
My mother is still alive and in arguably good health, despite being down to 1.5 feet. I actually have an adult relationship with my mother now, AS my mother. She's a pain in my ass, and I'm constantly reprimanding her and battling against the spirits of the past, but I AM thankful to have this opportunity with her before she dies. Even if I would have celebrated her death at one point. '19 was bad, incredibly bad for all of us, and I am so thankful we all lived through it and have come to excel far beyond it.
I have a new batch of kitties, mostly orange. We seriously have more ginger toms now than I ever thought one family would have, especially since most of them are NOT related!
I have a FANTASTIC job with a career where I am actually excelling and can see us being able to pay off stuff and actually (hopefully) being able to buy our own place one day.
I lost my car too, my beautiful Grand Mercury, but the little girl I do have, a '16 Chevy Sonic, holds up well, especially considering she has to do double duty, driving both her "father" and me to work and back every day.
I am in better health now than probably ever before in my life. In '18, before Jordan and I met in that Winter, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I had to have an ovary out. The doctor who removed it (and who has since, sadly, retired) said that it was so huge and had so filled up my insides that if it had not been taken out then and had grown even an inch more, it would have tilted over and killed me on the spot. I've had some women issues since, and three miscarriages, even another cyst, but the second cyst that troubled me for so long just eventually vanished. As for the kids, we do have feline kids, and one dog, and honestly, the more I see of other women and their kids, the less I think I'd ever have the patience! LOL Besides, I have plenty of people in my life who are basically grown kids who were never reached when they were children, and I honestly feel like that's part of my calling, to try to reach or help reach some of those adult children in our area. My company really is doing great things for a lot of the families in our area, and I work with many such kids that may well never have been reached if not for Provalus.
I am actually using my degree now and making good money. I am officially ITF certified, as of earlier this year, and am slowly beginning to work towards a Networking degree. I can seriously see myself continuing in the IT field no matter where our lives may lead us, and despite the woes of my job (all jobs have them!), this is, HANDS DOWN, the BEST job I have EVER been blessed to have! I don't even miss WalMart any more, and that WAS the best job I'd had and the job I had in 'cola that I loved so much!
Speaking of being in good health, I am actually losing weight and actually wore a sweater today that dates back to my college days and was even a bit tight back then! And they may not be the best of clothes, but I DO like my fashion sense and most of my wardrobe and actually have boots that fit again! Something I'd not really had except in costumes since I was a kid. I also could never wear them to work as a cashier -- I always had to use old "clod hoppers", as my Daddy called them -- but now, I get to wear them and a nice skirt every day I work. :)
I also may not have friends that I trust, but I DO have allies and I have people who SEEM to respect me. I have people who come to me for advice, and have a nice work and church life now. I even have neighbors with whom I talk from time to time now, instead of always thinking they're talking about me behind my back or even ridiculing me to my face. My parents weren't the only abusive ones to me growing up... I was literally made fun of by every other kid in my school, from the Kindergarteners on up, but I have also come to realize that it was because they didn't know what to make of my brain and, like the mutants I love so much, my differences -- my refusal to bow down to what they thought was okay, from killing animals and hating on gays and others who were different to simply not indulging in so much of the distasteful things most people do (drugs, wanton sex, overindulgence in alcohol, etc.), my morales, and my intellect -- made them uncomfortable, so they felt the need to lash out.
And as I've heard so often in my life, school was the best time for a lot of them. Now, however, I've come into my own, and I seriously could not have seen any of this happening, but I am living a preordained life and it is not meant for me to see God's plans until they come to fruitition. It's not meant for me to know what's going to happen, and I'm okay with that. After all, I couldn't have possibly imagined meeting my husband until we met. I couldn't possibly have imagined how my life would improve, or even that it would in or after, for the longest time, '19. It's frustrating that we don't have running water, that we're living in a storage house still -- But I am still so VERY THANKFUL for all the blessings we DO have!
As we celebrate Christmas, or whatever other Winter holidays, may be near and dear to your hearts, and move into the new year (2025 DOES sound futuristic!!), I find myself marveling and ever more grateful for how my life has turned out, and I hope that reading of my journey may help you in yours, if for no other reason than to find your own silver linings in this world and life. We're not meant to be here, not forever. We are meant to go home, or go to final resting place, and that's okay. But it's also okay -- it's MEANT to be -- that we get to enjoy our journeys along the way. <3
Thank you, God! Thank you, my friends, for reading and for sharing this trip with me! And here's to all the best for us all in 2025 and beyond!!
