It has been a long time.....

It has been a long time for a lot of things.....for instance, it has been a long time since my last blog. Life happens! I've taken some time off to get to know myself! After a lot of soul searching, I've discovered that I'm actually not a bad person, and I'm beginning to like who I see when I look into the mirror. People in my life may not always agree with my way of life, but I'm happy, and that's all that should really matter. Anyway...that's not what I'm writing about.

If you've read any of my previous blogs from the past, you know that I have struggled with depression. I think my mom's death was like the "icing on the cake" for me, and I've had to dig deep to keep from going back into a very dark, black hole.

I was in Walmart (go figure) the other day, and they had started to work on their Christmas aisle on the grocery side...you know, the one that has all the weird gift sets that really no one wants, but you feel compelled to go down the aisle anyway because, you know, it's your civic duty or something. Even though I wouldn't buy 99.9% of those gift sets (I'm talking about the ones with food in them), I found myself getting excited for the holidays! Namely, Christmas. My mom passed away on Christmas Day, so this holiday has been a real struggle for me and I've become somewhat of a scrooge. However, since moving back to Findlay and being near Kim and my grandson, Kyle, I see things in a different light. For the first time in what seems like forever, I can't wait until Christmas! Kyle has been the biggest blessing in my life, and he's made me see everything differently. He is such a joy! I'm looking forward to being able to see him open his gifts, seeing Santa, etc...and I'm hoping that we can start some of our own traditions that Kim, Kyle, and my baby daughter, Kasey, can take with them as they get older, and, when I'm gone, will have memories to hold onto. One thing I'm hoping to do is to have a day when I can go out to Kim's house and we can bake Christmas cookies all day, and I hope we can start doing this every year. I hope we can take an evening and go driving around looking at the Christmas lights. I hope for a lot of things. And there's the key word! HOPE! For the first time in a long time, I have HOPE again...I feel alive again and I feel like a young child seeing things for the first time. It's such a great feeling, and I hope it never ends.

I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving as well, even though I have to work. It's the forgotten holiday, it seems, but it, to me, is the beginning of the all important Christmas holiday. We all need to remember, though, the true meaning of Christmas...because without the birth of Jesus, we would have never had Christmas...something to think about.

Until next time.....