Debbie Downer

That's me tonight. I thought it was only fair to warn you before you started reading. So consider yourself warned.

I'm on Day Two of being a bachelorette for the week and it's going okay.

So. Right.

Well, I'll be honest; I'm enjoying the alone time, yes but no, yes but no.

My heart is a little heavy this week. I think I've been skiffing through life a bit superficially lately. Maybe the "awakening" started in the wake of the ninth anniversary of 9/11. Nearly a decade has gone by and it affects me now more than it maybe every did before to see the images from that day, to hear the stories from victims' loved ones....I think now, as a wife and a future mother, I see the impact that it had on families in a much different (perhaps deeper) sense and I shudder at imagining what it would be like to say goodbye to the person you love the most that day....your last goodbye, without realizing it.

And so.

I have felt guilty for the past several days. Guilty because my sweet husband has been asking some hard questions lately about the religion he grew up in and how that fits into our lives now. And what did I do? I snapped at him. Snapped at him for asking the difficult questions, because I don't know how to answer him and because I don't want to work hard enough or think hard enough to actually help him understand and because answering them would mean that I have to examine myself too.

I looked back at myself tonight and realized that I am a different person than I was five years ago. Who isn't, right? But really, I feel like a different person. I look at how many relationships were so integral to my life and who I was at that time and many of them are practically nonexistent now.

For many years now, I've had a hard time of letting go of people. I hang onto friendships like you might hang onto your favorite sweatshirt, or those pair of jeans that you think you'll eventually fit back into some day. And for a long time, hanging onto those relationships worked. But then....it didn't. I started putting limitations on them, started setting boundaries, and stopped doing all the work. A few years ago I used to think that would be the most painful thing in the world, to cut some of the ties from your past. Doesn't it hurt? But the thing that I realized is, it may actually hurt more to keep them in your life.

Last night I watched one of my closest friends interact with one of her sisters. It wasn't long before jealousy sidled over, pulled up a chair, and sat next to me for awhile. Finally, last night the pain sank in of not having one of my sisters come to my wedding. Actually, only two of my four siblings didn't show up, but my sister intentionally did it just to be hurtful. And it worked. How could you do that to your sister? I don't even know. I can't even end this post. How do I sum up the hurt/anger/resentment I feel towards her? That she missed out on a huge part of my life. That people I didn't even KNOW made it to Rolf's and my wedding day, and she couldn't even send a card?

It just reminds me that you have to make your own family. Family isn't who you're born into; family is who you share life with, who you can laugh until you cry or cry until you laugh with, who will pick up the pieces of your sad heart, who will pick up the bouquet and stand up for you on your wedding day, who will make nine hundred cookies for the enjoyment of our guests, who hold your hand in this life we walk through.

And yet, it still doesn't fill the void. Because you still know what you're missing; you see it every day. The reminder is there, that people are humans and you have to just accept them as they are. We all have limitations.