It’s been coming for a while, but I’m just starting to gear up for the prolonged merry-making of spending the holidays with family. When I think of the holidays, I almost always have strong feelings. Sometimes it feels like I’m on the cusp of a panic attack. Sometimes it is a wonderful, bubbly, giddy feeling. But always strong.

I am very much looking forward to spending time with family, but I’m also very nervous about it.

• What if Peter’s family doesn’t approve of us moving back to Buffalo?
• What if they are unhappy with my “choice” to be on disability leave right now?
• What if I don’t remember things I should or, in public, seem too proud of remembering something?
• What if I just feel out of place or unwanted?
• What if I forget to pack something important?
• What if I don’t leave enough food for the cats?
• What if I don’t leave enough water for the cats?
• What if someone breaks in and the cats aren’t warm enough or are threatened?
• How will Peter and I separate our belongings for the return flights?
• What if Peter doesn’t remember to fill the water bowl in the hall bathroom?
• What if something happens to Peter when we’re apart?
• What if my grandmother dies while I’m in Buffalo, or shortly before we leave?
• How can I stay in my own bedroom without feeling guilty, if my baby brother’s girlfriend will be visiting my parents’ house even longer than I will?
• How can I keep from listening to my parent and siblings talking about each other?
• How can I continue to project an air of someone who is significantly better than I was in June, if I wind up cracking under the stress of all the stuff that’s going on?
• How can I project the air of someone who is in enough pain to be out of work but not so much pain that people need to worry about asking about what I’m up for every hour, on the hour?
• How can I enjoy myself and thoroughly celebrate being alive and loving those around me when all this other crap, and more, is running through my head?

At least I’m learning to communicate a bit better. Last night, I was upset, but rather than hitting my husband with pillows or trying to converse with him after he had fallen asleep or just holding it in, I wrote him an email explaining my feelings and what certain actions, etc, had said to me. He didn’t directly respond, but he was more attentive today, so I think he read it. Additionally, I just found out he has off the 31st and 1st. So, if I feel the need to be home with my husband and cats, where I can begin to just sleep and tackle my life and maybe see Sherlock Holmes with him (again?), my family would understand.

I’ve been packing two weeks’ worth of stuff for a long weekend, so I am going to be using a great deal of restraint when packing for this trip, attempting to remember that, everywhere I go, there is free laundry and the chance to stop at a CVS for anything I’ve forgotten or run out of.

On another note, we were snowed in this weekend. On Saturday afternoon, it was snowing hard and, with over a foot on the ground already, we knew the day would be spent indoors. So I decided to take some holiday photos early that afternoon.

Leela had been curled in a very tight ball on the guest bed and was woken with her bows first. She was affronted and, when I persisted, she got up and ran away. The only time I saw her afterwards, that day, was for a few minutes after I fed her. She’s mostly kept her distance today as well.

Stewie, on the other hand, was sleeping in the middle of our comforter looking oh-so-cozy. I covered him with bows and he purred away as I snapped some pictures as Leela looked on with horror. Then he proceeded to attempt to play with / annihilate the bows. When I took them away, he went back to sleep.

Later that night, I took a picture of our tree. It was going to be a picture of Leela on or by our tree, but she was not cooperative. The gifts underneath are mostly (1) gifts from my parents for Peter, (2) gifts from my parents for me that will be too heavy for me to travel with, (3) gifts from my older brother & his wife, and (4) gifts from me to Peter (his to me will be under there at the last minute, as always).

Our Bedecked Kitty-cats

XMas Tree 2009

I can’t exactly say “Life is Good.” However, I’m certainly feeling better about it.

I had a long talk with my older brother last night and I’ve decided something very important regarding family drama: I will no longer believe what anyone says about anyone else. So things that happened between two or more people will become a patchwork quilt that might guide me to the actual truth. But, generally, I’m just going to love each individual person as themselves and stay out of whatever arguments might occur between them. I also discovered that I must be more specific (or, perhaps, more general) when speaking with my husband. For example, rather than saying “Did my sister call me in the hospital or did I talk to her after I came home?”, I should have asked whether we heard from her at all during all that.

I had a long talk with my husband the evening before. We discussed our feelings and, basically, we both want to stay together and work to improve communication and, overall, just find ways to love and live and laugh together regardless of situation.

I need to work on losing weight, creating a fitness routine (I think someone may have purchased either Wii Yoga or Wii Your Shape, but I also have a Yoga for Pain Relief DVD I can follow as well as Wii Fit), and (most importantly) find ways to actively cope with stress, upset, frustration/anger, depressive feelings, and the pain that results and triggers these feelings. The coping strategies I will discover through cognitive behavioral therapy. A friend, a teacher with her own CNS pain issues, strongly promotes CBT as one of the only ways to truly cope and maintain a successful teaching career. I really really like my new psychiatrist and psychologist, so I’m very hopeful.

My grandmother was given a new prognosis of 3 weeks or so, so I will get to enjoy the Black-Tie-Optional work-sponsored dinner with my husband tomorrow night. I have two different sets of Spanx, and I’m not sure which I’ll wear under my little black dress (if either), but I know that I’ll be wearing black hose and black suede pumps along with a scarlet wrap and clutch from Target. I’ll also be wearing pearls in my ears, around my neck, and on my wrist. But, more importantly, I’m getting my hair set and pinned into a pinup girl look, and my makeup will go with it.

Tuesday, we’ll be celebrating Christmas as a couple and may even go out for a special dinner. We’ll be opening our gifts for each other. We’ll also be opening gifts from my older brother and his wife, Peter’s gifts from my parents, and the heavier gifts they’d bought me.

I’m hoping, before the New Year, I’ll get to spend time with my life-long friend Jessi (and her boyfriend Joemca) as well as all 4 of my siblings (I’m counting my sister-in-law, since she’s been part of the family for over 20 years) and my niece and nephews. And, even more hopefully (since it’s less likely), I’ll be able to hang out with some (newer) local friends in the New Year.

This year, Christmas has been a bit tainted. It’s always been hard to spend Christmas away from my parents and siblings and have a more secular holiday with Peter’s family, but it usually helped that I can always visit before New Years (school holidays have always applied). However, this year, I kind of feel like I’m along for the ride, with Peter because I’m expected to be rather than because my presence would enhance the holiday for him or its lack would cause more than a hasty, awkward explanation. I think he’s trying to be more supportive, he just is having trouble understanding how much of what’s going on with me is psychological and how much is physical; it’s hard to believe that soldiering through and ignoring my fibromyalgia and only dealing with it when it’s horrible is avoiding the situation (just as much as only dealing with my depression when I’m about to kill myself would be), and going on disability and doing whatever needs to be done until I find something that works and a way to cope on a daily basis is actually active, tackling the situation head-on. Hopefully, he’s seeing the changes I’m making and how hard I’m working to improve both our lives, to make coming home to me and this house each day something he does not dread, and that will translate to more closeness and togetherness over the holiday (because we are spending quite a long while in Buffalo, especially considering how short Thanksgiving was and how detached we were from each other).

But that’s just one small Grinch compared to what’s going on with my family. There’s a lot of drama in the NY-tristate area. Christmas (or, more specifically, Christmas Eve) has been my mother’s one big holiday. It’s the only religious holiday she really feels comfortable observing, and she often shows her love through her thoughtfully-chosen gifts, so there’s a lot of love going around. There has been some fallout from Thanksgiving. My 46-year-old older sister (her stepdaughter) has been pulling power plays and, since she didn’t “win” Thanksgiving but she’s Jewish, she convinced my older brother and his wife not to go to my parents’ for Christmas eve, but to only do it at their home on Christmas Day. If they’d decided this 8 or 6 years ago, when the kids were infants, that would have made sense, but now they’re old enough for the drive and old enough to behave and…  well, I won’t be there for Christmas Eve and Jay’s girlfriend will be visiting and monopolizing his attention starting Christmas Day, and it’s all just hit my mom harder than it otherwise would have.

My mother feels like her world has slowly been falling apart. My brother is out in LA and it looks like his relationship is getting very serious (he’s having a lot of difficulty dealing with living apart from Sarah). I’m down in Maryland and considering moving to somewhere we can get more support, which is not near her, but near Peter’ s whole extended family (and many friends) 8 hours away in Buffalo. (Of course, if we do a trial separation, I’d be living with my parents and he’d be in Buffalo, but I’m hoping it won’t come to that.)

Aside from me and my siblings, her mother is dying in the hospital of pneumonia. My grandmother is 90 years old, 85 lbs, and 5′4″. She’s had Alzheimers for 20 years or more, and been in an assisted living facility for 13 years (3 years before I even met my husband). My mother has been all alone in dealing with her mother and her mother’s affairs for the past 20 years and my brother (especially Jay; he’s been home for more of it) and I have worked hard to support her, and I’m sure my dad has done his best too (but he tends to respond with logic, which doesn’t always work when you just need to vent feelings). For the first 10 years or more, my mother visited her mother every single Friday, watching her slowly deteriorate. My maternal grandmother was the sweetest, most loving and selfless person you could ever meet… 95% of the time. The other 5% was a true 180-degree change and a cause of very mixed feelings, especially considering it was a more 60/40 mix back when she was raising my mom. However, my grandmother was my mother’s guiding influence when it comes to how to take care of a family and how to truly celebrate a holiday, and the timing of her imminent passing, as well as the fact that she is “finally” passing, is extraordinarily painful for my mother. Since Jay’s in LA, it’ll be best if I can be there before and for the funeral.

But leaving, and then getting on that plane for Buffalo, will be very difficult.

Although I rarely curse, I think it’s fair to say that I am currently treading the locus of all points where several shit-storms converge.

Thanksgiving had been an interesting holiday. After spending Wednesday seeing my rheumatologist, packing, and picking up provisions, I was rushed into the car with my husband. The Thanksgiving meal was nice and it was great to see my baby brother, as well as my friend Jessi and her family, but I wound up having to take a nap first. Afterwards, my father and I had a long talk about my relationship with my father’s other daughter and our feelings about my younger brother, who died of SIDS when I was 5. Needless to say, a lot of crying occurred. The next day, my older brother visited with his wife and children and I had a sudden attack that appears to have been both a migraine and explosive diarrhea. But 4 hours later, I was okay to join the family and we had a few spectacular hours together. That night, my husband went to bed without saying anything first and I had some time with my parents and “baby” brother (he may be 22 and making a ridiculous amount of money, but he’s my baby brother).  I assured them we wouldn’t leave until I was sure the diarrhea was gone. The next morning, my husband pretty much rushed us out so we could get home to MD by the nightfall, so I didn’t get to spend much relaxing time with my family, but I’ll see them after Christmas, when I visit alone (his family gets us for Christmas, but schools always have off the week before New Years, unlike typical jobs, so I’ve always had time to visit).

Thanksgiving was a wake-up call for several truths:

1. I adore my family (my parents, my brothers, my sister-in-law, my niece and nephews, and yes, my best friend and her parents, too), and wish we all lived within a half-hour drive of each other.
2. Unlike my older brother, my half-sister is very aware of that “half”-status, and at best loves me in her way and has no idea what to do with me and at worst thinks of me as my mother’s daughter more often than not, whenever she does think of me.
3. My fibromyalgia is Out Of Control.
4. My husband and I are no longer a team. In fact, we are each coming to resent each other, partially because neither of us is truly willing to live with my current limitations. However, he has a choice.

That being said, I come home and shortly after discover the ramifications and start to form a plan. There is no choice now, I need to go on disability leave. However, my job isn’t protected under FMLA because I haven’t been working in this school district for at least a year. So, I can get 4/5 of my current salary, with full health benefits, if they keep me on until I get better enough to return, using the Sick Leave Bank (although that’s a big IF and there are significant drawbacks). Or, I can get 1/4 of my current salary through disability insurance if I lose my job and will have to get insurance through my husband. This all means that I’ll have to draw from my nest-egg and/or begin to sell higher-$ things that would cost more to move, like my piano or some book cases or our barely-used table-and-chairs from the kitchen in our Rochester, NY home. Also, the sooner we sell and move, the better; it costs less to live in western-NY than it does to live here, and maybe a 4-bedroom home just isn’t necessary.

After a little chat with my husband one evening, when I just out and said, “Okay, if you feel trapped with me and you want out of this relationship, just say so. A divorce won’t kill me – I can handle it.” His eventual reply was that maybe we can try counseling first. Since then, we still sleep in the same bed and he can still see my fat ass naked. However, we barely talk except to argue or apologize for rudeness, and I’m mentally thinking about how we can divide our possessions and wondering when he’ll decide to sleep in the guest room and how soon he’ll move to Buffalo so I can either downsize or move entirely to NY. I even accidentally got into a conversation that turned into an ex-spouse, breakup discussion that basically came down to one thing: be straight-forward, honest, and timely about it and then there won’t be as many hurt feelings. This teacher had gotten a triple, non-reversible vasectomy because his wife didn’t want to be on the pill anymore and her health coverage through the army only did this kind of vasectomy, which followed intensive, expensive counseling to ensure both were okay with the decision and planning on staying together. Within 3 weeks of the procedure, she asked for a divorce. That’s just cruel. Along not-so-severe lines, I’d rather just know that my husband was not supportive of my situation and would just do what he could, than have hurt and insult and blame stacking up until there was an explosion. At the same time, we have been together for over 10 years and married for nearly 6 years; we have two 7.5-year-old cats together. It will be hard when we’ve basically become adults together.

I do have some supportive friends and a very supportive family and my bosses just laid out that I need to leave completely until I can be back completely. I’ve found a new psychologist for myself, since my current psych was not working out for me (he asked me after I poured out all that I’ve been dealing with, “So what do you want from me?” and this was the first time I’d seen him in a month, because I’d had trouble getting in touch with him and making an appointment). After our next session, he’ll determine the best couple’s therapist for me and I’ll make an appointment with the psychiatrist in his group as well – they all discuss what’s going on with their patients and make a plan together, so that will be good.

Oddly, I don’t feel depressed so much as I feel down. I don’t feel hopeless and helpless. I just feel like life is sucking right now and I need to start approaching my life differently. My goal for this leave is to stop sticking my head in the sand being a workaholic/sleepaholic (I work 11 hrs, relax 2 hrs, sleep 11 hrs) and actually work on having a life that I can balance my work with. I want to start reading again, play more piano, write, and work on being a better friend/sister/daughter/aunt, etc…  “Wife” had been at the front of that list of better roles, but I’ll just try to pull my weight and work on myself and maybe our relationship will improve with that.