Why is that? The New Year melancholy question...

How is it that one day in the year can inadvertantly create such melancholy?  I'm not sure though, whether it is the day and the insinuation that from tomorrow we start afresh, or whether it's other's reactions and the expectations they place out there.

I'm sure just twenty four hours ago I didn't care to be doing anything at all.  I really didn't care one way or the other about the fact that one year was ending, and another was beginning.  I don't mean to sound 'bah humbug' on the New Year thing, but I just think the last few years have given me too much to dwell on and left a bitter taste in my mouth.  Correction: bittersweet now that we have our boy.  But bitter is still in there.

But then I watched a bit of television.  I saw the footage of the past year.  The earthquakes and tsanami devastations, floods and cyclones in our own country, disasters everywhere.  Death and celebration mixed together in reports of the deaths of notorious leaders.  Since when did we celebrate the murder of anyone, whether they be good or evil?  I struggle to comprehend it all.

At the root of all of this is one thought.  One feeling that strikes me in the pit of my stomach.  All of these people belong to someone else.  They are all someone's son or daughter.  In the absence of a parent, they are also someone's wife or husband.  Someone's father or mother.  Someone's friend. 

And so it was the beginning of my impartial demise.

:::

Next was the discussions I witnessed about who was doing what.  I really only heard one or two things that took my fancy, so I think it was a kind of peer pressure that formed within me, forcing me into a corner of observation that told me that because I had no invitations to do anything I was a social outcast of kind.

How did that happen though?  I truly didn't want to be going to someone's bbq, or partying on at some random club.  Nobody put that pressure on me.  I simply and inadvertantly put it on myself.

:::

It's 9.27pm and the first text message for the evening has arrived.  Do I reply?  I guess I will.  But funnily enough, I wonder too how I would feel if I simply got no text messages at all.  Would I feel unloved and forgotten?  I don't intend to send a bunch out.  Or maybe I will.  I guess it depends on where my mood takes me in the next couple of hours.  I do of course wish everyone a happy New Year.  But I'm being too bah humbug to put it out there, outside of my mind.

:::

And then there is our good old fa.cebo.ok.  We love it, don't we?  I'm being relatively serious there, because without it we wouldn't have the close knit support groups that we do.  Social networking has indeed come a long way.

But as the night has progressed I am seeing so many NYE wishes.  Some are straight forward, wishing friends and family the proverbial.  While others are providing a summary of their year.  The highs and lows.  Some are including the highs and lows of close friends and/or family as well.

It almost enticed me to write my own.  But I hesitated.  I don't feel like my story is a short one (oh, and those who know my writing will agree that I would struggle to write three words as a "short one" haha!).  I also feel that it would be misunderstood by many in real life.

:::

My SIL asked me today if I was partying tonight.  TBH it was before any of the above had really registered as "getting" to me.  My answer was no.  That I am too bitter and twisted these days to be allowed to party, lest it get messy.  It was meant as a light hearted way of saying I wasn't up for it.  But her reply was to ask why was I bitter and twisted.

It's about then that I think much of it began crashing down.  Not because of what she said or anything as such, but just the question asked in all innocence.  I guess I would have thought that the answer was plain and simple to anyone who knows me.

My son.  My first son.  He's not here.  He never will be again.

And with that my tongue tied (or my typing fingers twisted) as it dawned on me that there is no way to explain where I am at the moment, without sounding ungrateful for what I have. 

:::

In actual fact, there are no words for the depth of my gratefulness.  I love Toby with every square millimetre of my heart and soul.  He gives me absolute reason for being here.  And that love grows with every moment.  Who would have thought that you really can love someone more and more and more.  And then when you think you've reached capacity, you can love them even more.

He has healed my heart more than I could have asked of a little boy.  But although my heart can be healed like that, it can never truly be repaired.  There will forever be a hole in it.  I don't need to explain that to anyone here, I'm sure.

:::

So then, what is it that bothers me right now? 

It is the end of a year.  Farewelling what has been.  What we know.  And heading into a new year which is unknown.  I find it somewhat daunting.

The year was good to us, overall.  We welcomed our beautiful baby boy.  But not before we farewelled my loved Nana.  But then she gave me Toby on her 97th birthday.  What more could I have asked of her.  I am at peace with it, but I miss her every day.

And our baby boy.  What more could we ask, really.  What more could we ask. 

Nothing.  The "bads" are only minor compared to the good of his arrival, yet they are still "bads". 

:::

I remembered too... this is the first NYE in three years, that I haven't been pregnant.  It is the second in five years that I haven't been.  What milestones they are.

It is the first in five years that we feel we have something to celebrate. 

Yet, I fear the celebration of life when I have learned just how fragile the here and now is.  Here today, gone tomorrow. 

I see comments from friends on fb and want to ask them to please stay safe.  I fear seeing or hearing news tomorrow that is not good.  Or will it be next week or next year.

:::

But back to my SILs question, and the fact that I don't feel like celebrating because I still miss my son.  That the milestones I just spoke of insinuate a family of five.  Or even more.  Yet we are a family of three.

How can I say that to anyone?  People have their own sadness'.  People have their own journeys.  To say that to someone who has never had children, will never have children, may never have children, is unfair of me.  I am blessed.  I am lucky.  I know that.  But I am selfish enough to give way to the forever yearning for my first son.  I am greedy enough to want them both.  Greedy enough to want all three of them.

And so I will not say it.

:::

I don't do resolutions.  I gave that up years ago.  What is a resolution when people seldom reach their promised goal.

I used to say I had no regrets.  I can't say that any more, however the regrets that I hold are ones that I had no control over anyway.

But I do do wishes.  I have a lot of wishes in my heart, for some of my closest friends.  I wish, I wish, I wish...