So the Holidays are winding down...and reality is closing in.

I know alot of people get down around the holidays. I am usually really good before the holidays. I love the excitement of Christmas. The decorations, of course the buying, the wrapping, but I really like the giving. I love to give presents, maybe to the excess. There is something nice about making someone else happy. Unfortunately I do not always have the money needed to buy the presents that I buy, which gets me in financial hot water. This Christmas was no exception. I was really good until the week before then I got caught up in the buying frenzy...
Credit cards were used, store accounts were used...it was bad.Amazon makes buying too easy. Does it make it better that I was buying for others? Some of the things I bought went to poor migrant families who had nothing for Christmas. I felt that because it was for Charity and it wasn't things I was keeping it was OK, it was worth it.

I have found that the more I put out into the world, the more I am getting back. I have been donating things, money and time to charities and people in need. I have found the world to be returning my generosity.  My 3 yr old and I rang the Bell for Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign for an hour the week before Christmas. I felt good for showing him how to help others, (until a family member belittled and attacked my choice of Charity). I feel overall I have put more out into the world this year than maybe any year prior.

However now that Christmas has past, this is when my depression sets in. The reality returns cold and biting. The bills, the overdrafts, the negativity. The overwhelming realities of life.  Snow seems dingy and dirty, the Christmas cheer has passed from people's faces. The uncertainty of a new year approaches with the regrets of things not done or unfinished in the past year.

I watched Hoarders last night with sense of fear and awe. I understood their pain, their inability to move forward. A therapist said the the Obsessive is the buying and spending and accumulating, with the compulsive actually being the inability to let go. Am I where they started....I can't go there.

I have to CHANGE in the coming year. I am getting to the point where I don't want to leave the house because I am embarrassed by my appearance. I have no clothes that make me feel presentable much less good. I don't want my children to be embarrassed by me or our home. I must fix our finances so we don't end up in bankruptcy. I have made this mess and I must figure this out.

A friend recently asked "Do you think others see you, the way you see yourself"

I know they don't. I still see in my mind the thin, pretty, successful, put together women I used to be, but when I look in the mirror she is no longer there. Reality Bites....