Too Much Reality

I'm going to glaze over this one a little, so bear with me here.... but I don't feel like after this Christmas get together I can continue to sort of pretend (if that's what I've been doing) that my parents aren't aging.  Because of course they are.  We all are, if we want to get into that, but I just mean this year I really really noticed.  For whatever reasons.  And it has hit me hard and I think I have some mourning to do.

But I've been distracting, not so much delving in and dealing with it because it hurts and it's upsetting and there are parts of me that are utterly devastated and not wanting to face the truths.  And I can justify things and "well yeah but" things because they're not.... you know... worse.

Sigh.

My parents are actually really super healthy, and "young" for their age.  But I see changes.  And I'm sad.  So very sad.  And to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how to interact with these new people.

Because it does feel like they're something that needs to be handled differently.  Somehow.  And I need to let go of what they used to be for me because I don't think they're capable of being that anymore and that's hard.  And I'm not sure how much of this they know and I don't want to point anything out that might hurt feelings and it strikes me that we often aren't aware of how things were until they change.... "you don't know what you've got til it's gone..."

Indeed.  And so it goes.