Another Year Older

So here we are, another year older.  It's Christmas time, and the TV is just loaded with light shows, TV shows, old movies, young people home shopping, etc.  For us as we get older, seems the holidays just get more depressing.  What we see now are names marked out in address books for Christmas cards, names of loved ones and dear friends no longer with us.  We see empty seats at the table for dinner, we see items when shopping that those not with us would have loved.  We see ornaments on the tree decades old and reminded who got them for us or who was with us when we got them, or what the occasion was that we bought that special ornament for, the birth of a child, a wedding.  The ornaments so fragile that our children made a lifetime ago, how proud they were when they brought them home.  How happy it was to be a young family with children experiencing their first Christmas, before the illness, before the infidelity and the pain that replaced it all.  I think when young people look at older people they just see worn out versions of themselves and that's pretty true, but what they don't see are the young and vital versions of us, graduating, college, getting married, having children, buying our first home, the career.  They don't see any of that, but we remember.  We look at the mother struggling to keep her little kids under control and think back on how fun it was to just go with little kids, the wonder at the new toy, the new outfits.  They get very tired of the noise, crying, squealing, dogs barking, phone, doorbell, and they have no idea those are the things they will miss the most.  The quiet is deafening.  We as parents must step back and just be observers and try not to be too up close and personal so as not to be a burden.  We end up with the health problems and have to face right away we will not be a burden to our children, there are other solutions to that problem.  We won't be warehoused with others like us, just hoping not to wake up.  It gets hard to cover the fact that the pain is an all-encompassing thing, that just going out for an hour's shopping just requires rest the rest of the evening. Things we loved to do, like going out to listen to bands and having a drink, we still can but we look ridiculous sitting in the clubs with all the young people.  I remember being young and wondering why "old people" still came out.  Taking a weekend trip requires making sure we have enough medication on hand.  We see doctors who aren't interested in us.  They don't know the vital people we were, they see the present version and it gets to where you don't even tell them what's wrong, nothing changes and nothing will.  I worked in medicine and I remember helping people and feeling sad for older people in the hospital; now I'm that older person, hoping these young kids care any at all.  So it's Christmas and I will fake my way through it, pretend buying gifts was fun, pretend cooking by myself was fun, pretend cleaning up after a houseful of people is fun, pretend I'm not waiting to just rest in the quiet and shut my eyes, pretend the mess of decorations is fun, when really I just want them out of my living room, pretending to have hope for the future when it isn't there, pretending I'm not deeply grieving for those who have passed, trying to put that fake smile on when it's not there.  Just being so tired.