Chapter One

Yesterday was Christmas.

Chapter Two

I am constantly astounded by how my perceptions become altered by the actual life events that take place. I envisioned my Christmas holiday to be spent doing a set number of things in a particular order. I had set my day up all ready and planned. And then life happened.

My friends of a long time messaged me that they wanted to visit. I hesitated. I wanted my day to go my way. She said they wouldn’t stay long. I acquiesced against my heavy heart.

Old friends, inappropriate for the day, (I judged)

arrived full of merriment and joy.

Boisterous stories with fucking punchlines

Laughter spilling from them like beer

free-flowing,

I’m grieving. Inappropriate.

I feel like I’m the one who is inappropriate.

I wandered through their words, but I can’t

connect

I refocus, finding deep concerns of their own

Ones they came to share as their gift.

Just them being everything they are and I,

I sat in judgement because of my own sorrows.

How can I hold space when there is too much

detachment?

Chapter Three

As you may know, dear ones, I am no longer a chicken mom and I’ve taken it pretty hard. A role I treasured in my heart has been taken away by time and the realization that no matter how much you love someone or something, they will have to leave in whatever capacity.

Change is inevitable. It’s when we pretend that it isn’t, is when the expectations grow into a catastrophe of events. I thought my life would be a simple little chicken farmer in an urban setting. I planned on my husband and I would build it together. That vision got disrupted when I moved back down here and he and I chose individual happiness instead of mutual dissatisfaction.

Chapter Four

By passing my thoughts of yesterday

through the filter of sleepy wisdom

I process.

I’m grateful for my fucking people

just as much as I am for my church people

(Some of which are in both categories)

That they arrived enough

to disturb my lamentations

My sorrow of a vision lost to time

My sorrow of a chosen different path

My sorrow of little friends I knew

My grief of the loss of my vision of family

I’m weeping. And lonely for that path I once walked.