Places I would rather not re-visit

[minks]

I was driving home tonite when the song, "the weak and the powerless" by Perfect Circle played on.
It took me back to such a bleak time in my life, back to a place I would not like to visit to often.

All my life Christmas was celebrated with loads of family surrounding me. My parents and us kids would travel to Vancouver Island where we spent Christmas with my moms parents, her sister and family (if they were not in some exotic place due to my uncle being in the air force) Winter was much milder on the island so we could go out in the back yard and play or go to the beach etc. But there was always family and familiarity. If we were not out on the island we were here at home celebrating with my fathers family, his parents, his brother and his family. Loads of food, people, gifts, merriment etc. I married and my christmas's were then split between my family and his family. Again loads of familiarity and merriment and activity.
August 2004 was my final chapter of my divorce. Christmas 2004, my parents and my brother and my sis in law did everything in their power to make for a Merry Christmas for 3 very sad and displaced girls. My mother had us over christmas eve, and we had food and drink. My girls then 16 and 13 were making due, they really tried to enjoy themselves, but it was straining (all the while their father had taken off with his new lady to Disneyland for christmas (sadly this was a special place for us back in the day as we took the girls to Disney 4 times before)) so they did their best. We grew tired and my mother tried to convince us to spend christmas eve with them over night but our comfort level was home. So we left late at night and went home to our very empty house. The tree was decorated, and loaded with piles of gifts, our house was decorated with all the old decorations I had collected over the years, it looked perfect and festive. But it was painfully lonely. I just could not face going to bed alone on christmas eve, I was feeling incredibly broken. I sat my girls down and told them to heck with traditions, let's open one gift each on christmas eve (I have always insisted we open christmas morning) and I told the girls they could pick out my gift for me to open. So they picked out a gift the had gone out and got me. It was a CD and it was Perfect Circles CD. After we opened our gifts we haulled up matteresses and spread them on the living room floor near the tree and put in my CD and played it over and over all night long until we fell asleep.
I guess it is times like this that make one think, my god I can't let my life become this. I think it was my absolute lowest of low times.
Happily last years christmas was much better and the down times every now and then hardly compare to how awful that first christmas felt.