Let me explain…

Yeah right.  Like I could sum up anything.

I know I have not been all rainbows, puppies, and sunshine as of late {in the off chance I actually post something}, but I’m not gonna lie, life has been hard.  The end of the semester couldn’t come soon enough, but the good news is it looks like all the hard work has paid off.  I am a few exams away from several weeks of freedom and let me tell you, I really, really need it.

December has been a tough month since oh round about 10 years ago when I lost my maternal grandma.  Fast forward a year, and it was the first December without my other grandma, whose birthday is on Christmas Eve no less.  She is a big part in why I am in nursing school, blazing the trail many, many decades ago {with seven children and a farm to run}.  Then my last grandparent died days before Christmas a few years later and we had a trifecta of suck.  This year we get to add in one more December funeral and yet another December birthday to celebrate without the one to be celebrated.  

I love Christmas, like LOVE Christmas, but it gets more and more difficult to get in the spirit with each passing year.  At Christmas, we get to see the best in people as they go out of their way to be kind to one another. The songs {Little Drummer Boy is one of my favorites – Jars of Clay or Pentatonix to be exact.}, buying gifts for people, spending time with family, baking cookies, and best of all, celebrating my little miracle boy’s birthday.  {How on God’s green Earth is he already turning 8 this year?!}  Now, if you throw in some fresh snow, a full moon, and big flakes falling from the sky, I might just pee my pants in happiness.  Seriously, this makes me so happy, I can’t even put it into words.  Walking at night in a snowfall is something that can’t be described, only experienced.  The crisp scent in the air, the sound of boots crunching in snow against the silence of the darkness, a moon shining down and making the snow sparkle, a special hand to hold, and a sense of calm and peace that I have never experienced anywhere else.  I suppose some people get this same feeling from the mountains, or the beach, but for me, nothing can top a nighttime walk in fresh snow.

Here I am, barely able to hold back tears at any given moment.  I’m not sure what specific emotion I’m feeling but I can tell you this, it has been one hell of a year and I’m not just talking about nursing school.  Come to think of it, I’m not sure that my husband and I have ever had a “down” year where life was still and boring and contained not a single tragedy.  This year though, this one has been the hardest years of our lives. I can’t recap it all, but death and mourning seem to have been the reigning theme.

I’m not saying all of this to get pity or other such nonsense, if you know me at all, you know that isn’t even in my DNA.  I guess it is more to try and sort it all out for myself because let’s be honest, I’m a hot mess.  I’m emotionally unstable and I’m pretty sure one more thing will send me to my knees.  Everything is just… wrong this year.

I’m forcing myself through the motions and doing all the things that bring me even a moment of joy, including baking a freaking cheesecake for a friend the night before our exit exam.  Even if I don’t get to the ecstatic, Buddy the Elf level of excitement, I’ll be happy to make it through with my heart still intact.