Month: December 2018

Well, it’s that time of the year again, my daughter Ashley’s birthday. I remember when she was born and due around Christmas. Everyone would say, “Have her on Christmas Day!” “Have her on New Years Eve!” , like I had control on when she would come. Actually, I kinda did because I had a scheduled C section, but my doctor decided, not me.

I get so melancholy about this time. So emotional. I went to the doctor today for a routine visit and he asked me if I was depressed. I thought, “yea! that’s it, depressed!” After further discussion he concluded that I wasn’t depressed because I could laugh the next minute after I was sad, no, not bipolar he said. I think you are just overwhelmed with responsibilities. I think he is right, which brings me back to Ashley. She is my best responsibility.

When she was little and I was a single mom, it was hard. But it was mine. I did it because I was supposed to and I loved having her, my best friend, the best kind of best friend because she loved to do anything I wanted to do! It was just me and her, her and me. She could never let me down, she didn’t know how too! We were the best of friends, did everything together. She didn’t know she liked something until I showed her. I didn’t want her to miss out on anything at all. Because her birthday falls around Christmas, I promised her an experience birthday present every year. A Broadway show, the orchestra, the ballet, an off Broadway show, a trip to NYC, Center City Philadelphia to see STOMP, ice skating in Rockefeller Center, anything we could think of. She became an expert at going to NYC on the train. Saturday she turns 23 and we are on our way to NYC tomorrow! We are both excited. We will be staying at The Wyndham New Yorker, a fancy hotel. A hotel chain she now works for here at home. We have no plans, just to do what we want, when we want. We may just stand in line for seat filler tickets for a show.

Okay, I’m babbling. Her boyfriend of six years asked her to marry him and she said yes. Now I am going through the emotions of letting her go, again! I let her go when she moved out and now I feel like I have to do it again. This sucks. But I’m not going to let it, I am going to enjoy my time with her, every minute, in The City That Never Sleeps! I love you Ashley.

I can’t help but miss the excitement. I remember when I was a child, the excitement of it all. We would go to my Aunt Edythe’s house in Robbinsville, NJ for Christmas Eve dinner, those days are gone. On the way home, my brothers, and sister and I would lay down in the back of the station wagon looking up in the sky for Santa flying over us. My dad had convinced me we would see him, and we did! Each and every time. Now I know it was an airplane, falling star or another flying object in the dark, night sky, but back then it was the one and only Santa himself. I know it, my dad said so.

We would look at all the Christmas lights in the neighborhood, rush home to get in our pjs, leave some cookies out, and rush to bed so he would stop at our house. My parents used the line many of us have, go to sleep or he won’t come… as if we could sleep with all the hopes of the next morning. Sometimes I would hear rustling of packages, but that only made me bury my head further under the sheets so he wouldn’t find out I was still awake.

I also remember doing all the Santa stuff for my Ashley. I was determined to make her Christmases as good as anyone else’s no matter if I was a single mom or not. Yes, I said all the same things, did the cookie thing, the rush to get to bed, only so I could set everything up and go to bed myself!

I consider myself a Christian, so I am well aware of the meaning of Christmas. I know Jesus is the reason for the season and I love the trinity of Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit. I just miss the traditions of the Santa story, I am missing children in my house! My daughter has her own house now, and I am glad she went to church with us tonight but you know what? She wanted to go home to bed! No excitement there… kinda sad as I look at pictures of her on my desk right now, as a sweet little girl who didn’t have to work three jobs to pay her rent. I miss long ago Christmas. Nothing is the same anymore.

Anyway, have a wonderful Christmas morning tomorrow, I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I’m going outside on my deck to look for flying objects in the night sky…