[a mess]

Christmas is over.

McKayslin's birthday is over.

New Year's Eve is in 2 days.

All of this wraps up into one big huge emotional mess of a time of year.  

Try as I may, I can not, just can't, make it work.  

I can't juggle the emotions of everyone in this house while I attempt to juggle my own.

I can't put on a smile and go out in public and pretend that my broken heart isn't.

I can't spend too much time with the people I love because their sadness echoes my own so deeply that soon we're all just lost in the sad.

So our days consist of reading.  TV.  Computer time.  Tablet time.  Cooking.  Eating.  And lots of time in separate rooms away from each other.

It certainly doesn't help that McKayslin and I both caught some awesome bug last weekend.  And that she missed the last 2 days of school.  Or that I still am not feeling well.  And Grammy is now sick. 

It doesn't help that today for dinner I made ham and beans - the one meal Kenton requested I make for him when he was finally better and didn't get to make for him at all.

It most definitely doesn't help that our house still looks like Christmas threw up all over because no one has the emotional energy to take it all down and put it all away.

Today, Luke and I went on a date.  
Lunch.
Shopping.
Mostly to get the things on our list, plus the traditional 3 gifts of New Year's Eve.
It's hard.
The memories.
The emotions.
The knowing Kenton doesn't get to do any of this with us anymore.

Taking pictures, knowing that I won't ever have any new ones of him.
Looking at old pictures, wishing I'd taken more.
Wishing I'd written the memories of the pictures.
Catching up on some scrapbooking.
Heart ripped out of my chest and lying in shards on the floor with each page.

Wondering if the new year will bring an added measure of peace that we so desperately seek.  Knowing that the peace will come, but praying that it stays.  That it heals.

And just so many other things that are so illogical and unreasonable that I can't even make myself say them out loud...

Feeling like my best will never ever be good enough again.