I’ve done ALL THE THERAPY and one of the things I’ve learned is that when you are depressed or anxious or both at once… it’s extra important to stop and take moments to notice a job well done. Even if you feel like a fuck up all the time, that’s probably not true. Sometimes you get it right. Stop then. Notice. Try to let your brain experience a few moments of feeling something other than self hatred.
Right now I am watching the cats climb around on the climbing gym in the middle of the lounge. It is one of the most charming sights I’ve ever seen.
Our lounge is definitely the largest room I have ever had in a house I have lived in. It’s easily twice the size of the living room we had in California and it has a sloping roof that goes up to about 12 or 15 feet. (I have to measure soon. I will know for sure then.) The room is pretty packed right now. I spent all day moving stuff around. My family never once challenged me on why I wanted to do all the shifting, they just helped.
The Christmas tree is massive and the pile of presents is kind of ridiculous. Well, ridiculously large looking but an awful lot of it are things we genuinely need. EC has a bed frame in there. We all got stuff for dealing with the climate–that’s a big deal! There are kitchen things in the pile that we will use for making family food. There are hair supplies and soaps and bath bombs (not a necessity) and face cleaners.
Ok, there are some purely frivolous things too. My kids didn’t ship their toys to Scotland; they got rid of almost everything they owned. There’s a doll house and dolls and toddler learning toys. There are some bath toys. Lots of art supplies; both of the big kids have completely used up their stock of art paper so now they each have a new sketchbook. There is a sewing machine; EC has asked for one for a few years now. It seems like a great time. MC begged for a keyboard. Given that every time my children get the chance to bang on a piano they spend hours doing that… it seems like a pretty reasonable gift.
And books. Of course there are books. More books than I would normally buy in one holiday but A) they were phenomenally cheap and B) we are absolutely book starved. No regrets.
It’s a lot. I won’t do a Christmas this big again, probably in my whole life. We are still just starting and after this we won’t have room for so much.
The play gym can fit down in the apartment when the lounge needs to be used for another purpose. It also folds up for handy storage! I love it. I could never have gotten something like this in California. Here an outdoor play structure like I had there would be fairly unusable a big chunk of the year.
Circumstances change.
Our strict budget starts in a week. I’m ready.
When I turn off the seizure causing blinking lights (the kids love them) and just have the still lights to illuminate this room, it looks pretty magical. I will leave on some lights all night long so that when the kids wake up they will come in to a lighted room. The sun isn’t up till after 9am right now. I told them they couldn’t come out till 5am. They have watches! Monitor your own behavior! But the light are necessary.
The future is unknowable. I don’t know what challenges will come. But right now, we are all set for a magical Christmas.
Stop. Notice. This is something I helped create too. We did it.
I think I can go to sleep now, at a reasonable hour. I have a fun day ahead of me.