Christmas is over ...

Christmas is over and now it’s New Years Eve. Another year is ending. I had a nice dinner with my family on Christmas. Turkey was tasty but the cake that I usually bake, that cake did not turn up good as usually. I had some missing ingredients. Basically grocery stores closed way too soon this year on Christmas Eve. I tried to get into Basic Foods grocery store, but it was closed even before 7 p.m. It was strange. As if they do not have enough food to sell? I do not get it. Or do they just force people to go to restaurants?

May be it’s just a big conspiracy, I do not know. I was shocked, as I tried to buy some stuff for my Christmas dinner and ”kissed” the locked doors. I did not want to buy food at a variety store and I decided to manage as is and I managed all right just my cake did not turn up as good as usually.

Well, it’s not the last Christmas I hope. There will be much more holidays I am sure, more nice turkeys and cakes. Next time I’ll do better, I promise. I did not have any guests anyway, just my family, so it’s okay. And now it’s the end of the year, I probably should stop here my writing and finish tomorrow. I do not have to work tomorrow so I can continue my narration easily. I just do not want to postpone it till next year.

It’s funny. Today is the year 2009 and in an hour it will be 2010.

I have not accomplished a lot in the year 2009. Same job, same old people around. Did not go anywhere for holidays – no funds for that. May be next year. Always the next year.

What should it be like a New Year resolution? I do not know. I do not want to plan too much. May be get some education in something useful, or get a license in translation, that’s long overdue.

Or may be just to buy a new TV, old one is gone.

Or to go somewhere I’ve never been.

Or to get some courage and buy a house, though in the last case I need more money than courage.

Somehow I do not anticipate more money next year. Well, I think I’ll be all right anyway. I have a job. I am healthy. I did not catch that scary swine virus in the year 2009, that’s good.

Inflation is up. But Canadian politicians declared the end of a crisis, so may be somebody else in my family will get a job too…

Prices are up too. Yesterday I wanted to buy some caviar for my holiday sandwiches, but when I got into a small Russian grocery store, I noticed the sign: 200g of genuine black caviar - $299.

I told the store girl: “You have a mistake on your label, it’s supposed to be $2.99 or something and she responded:” No, no mistake, it’s the right price”. Indeed!

No caviar for me, sorry, not rich enough.

Some smoked salmon sandwiches will do all right.

In my old country there was such a word “to get” something, that word had a very broad meaning.

If you do not have something, but you need it and you cannot go to the store and just buy it, you can “get” it if you know the right people, who could “get” it for you.

Well, I did not “get” inexpensive caviar this year; do not know the right people in Canada.

That means I will be deprived of my rights as a citizen to have the food that I want on my New Years Eve (just kidding). I do not care less. I will be happy with my salmon and cheese sandwiches and a glass of wine and with people who are dear to me around.

Cheers! See you in a year!

I find it annoying...

It’s so annoying; I cannot even say it. I do not have time to write anything. Today I was so tired; I was sitting just watching an old movie. I love old movies from 1950s and earlier. I adore Betty Davis. She is so full of inner charm and energy, that she attracts you and draws your attention.
It was that phrase that caught my attention. One man was singing something like “You had a feeling that you wanted to go and you had a feeling that you wanted to stay”… Something like that, very funny and at the same time to the point. We all sometimes have I am sure emotions like that. When we feel that we have to go, we want to go, but at the same time we want to stay. We just want the situation change and go away by some miracle, so we could stay, because we do not really want to go… Well, if you never experience something like that then you will probably won’t understand.
For so many years I’ve been living in a situation when I felt like I desperately want to go somewhere, but I did not at the same time wanted to leave my family and go away. You see, when you do something what you do not really want to do just because circumstances make you do that, and you are afraid to do otherwise, you little by little create a situation in which you are not comfortable, not satisfied, do not want to stay.
You start looking for solutions and find yourself trapped in that position that basically you yourself created, if you know what I mean. You become completely dissatisfied, trapped in it, you are trying to find a reasonable solution, but do not see that. You feel obligations, somebody is counting on you, your husband, children, relatives, you have a job you are afraid to loose etc. You continue to live and feel miserable, but do not see the red light that says: THE EXIT. You could live for many years like that and it’s the worst favour you could do to yourself.
If you are not changing the situation, then the situation will change you and not to your advantage.
You are going to loose your faith in yourself and in your ability to change things to the better. I do not think that I am unique in that, I think many people, women especially do that mistake. They allow the situation to control them and screw their lives big time. Because you cannot change the past and years that you left behind should be the happy ones, ones you’d like to remember and cherish.
Then your life is worth living.
Though I find it really annoying sometimes that you cannot change the past.

A happy childhood, what is it?

Perhaps to understand that you should at least experience it. I did not have o lot of it. At nine years of age my childhood was over. My youngest brother got really sick and I had to take care of him because my mother had to work and there was no one else to take care of him but me and I was just 9.

My mother could not cope with the tragedy. She literally fell apart. I became his second mother. I cooked for him, fed him, because he could not take care of himself. I sang him songs and read stories and I called him my son because my mother called him that.

I loved him very much too, I wanted him to be alive, healthy and happy but there was no help for him in my country at that time and no financial support. My parents had to work and I had to take care of him and to go to school too.

And in her grief my mother forgot that I was a child still, that at 9 years of age you cannot behave like a grown up, you cannot think like a grown up. You need some support you need somebody to share your doubts, concerns and troubles.

At my age I did not think my mother loved me at all. I thought that she was not my real mother, that she adopted me from somebody else. She could never find time to stop, hug me and just tell: I love you, I need you, I cannot live without you.

It would be very simple to say that and I needed those words and I waited for them for many ears but my mother never said them.

She never told me that she loved me and I do not know why.

I am sure that she loved me but it's too late now. She is not in this world with me any more and I cannot ask her anything. But every time I have a chance I am telling my children over and over again: I love you, I need you, I cannot live without you, because I do not want them ever to doubt that.