Advent is a Time of Waiting

This Christmas season has been a little weird.  Christmas is always my favorite time of year, but even though I've been enjoying my tree and lights and Christmas music, it still hasn't felt quite like Christmas.  I'm not really sure why.  One thing I'm glad of, though, is that I'm together enough this year that Advent sermons about preparing aren't making me fall apart thinking of how I was preparing for nothing to happen.  That's probably some combination of the therapy this spring and the fact that we're actually getting somewhere this winter, even if we don't have anything to show for it yet.  I don't really care to analyze it too deeply, though; I'd rather just sit back and appreciate it.  I guess part of the weird feeling is that I feel like I'm doing a lot of that, sitting back and watching, rather than really being in the middle of things.  I'm not sure why I'm doing it, and there may be many things contributing, but I am.

OK, now that I'm done psychoanalyzing myself (for the moment, at least!), there are a couple of cool things I wanted to share on this, the eve of my next RE appointment.  One of them needs some background info unless you already know me pretty well IRL.  For those who have never met my dad, it pretty much says it all to say that he was a Marine Corps Drill Instructor at Parris Island before I was born and is currently a Command Sergeant Major with the National Guard, in his third deployment.  Although he and my stepmom needed ART to have my sister, he doesn't approve of me doing this blog because private information should stay private.  Because of this, it meant a LOT to open up Facebook on Monday to see a file he had sent me that was his receipt for donating to RESOLVE.

The other thing I wanted to share was a really powerful quote that ScubaGirl had posted:

The English language lacks the words to mourn an absence. For the loss of a parent, grandparent, spouse, child or friend, we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful some not. Still we are conditioned to say something, even if it is only “I’m sorry for your loss.” But for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?" ~Laura Bush


For those who stuck with me through the rambling, congratulations!  I'll post another update after the RE appointment tomorrow morning.