We tried to go to the fall fair this year. We go every year. We have only missed very few years as a family. Everyone was excited to go and the weather looked promising. We did go. It honestly was one of the worst years ever. It sort of broke everyone's hearts in different ways. We all just wanted to feel together and happy and to enjoy it and it was the opposite.
It is hard when things like this happen. We don't do a lot of 'special' family things together. There are not a lot of planned family things except birthdays. We don't go camping or on holidays together. I wish this wasn't the case but my husband is just not that kind of person and I have not prioritized it either.
I have these wishes of what our family culture would be. I have been thinking more about it lately. I observe healthier families out there. There are celebrations with good food and extended family. There are family trips. There are individualized times with parents for each child. There are so many things that are done in healthy families that I so wish happened in my family. Sadly I have not been able to implement them. It seems ridiculous that I am still so incapable as I have been a parent for over twenty years.
I know it was just the fall fair. However the way it went felt a bit symbolic for how this year has gone.
I think about myself as a grandparent and as a mother and my shoulders sink. I want to be intentional and creative and fun and sweet. I want to be a safe space and for my house to be one that people WANT to come to. This is so far from reality in some respects.
My grandma had juice and homemade scones and cookies ready every time we went there. She had frozen yogurt and a hill to roll down. She had homemade preserves, a flower garden and a vegetable garden. She had fall leaves to scuff through and a clean house. She had a sewing room and lipstick to try on. She had dolls to sew and fall leaf crafts to wonder over. She had delicious dinners and live music concerts to take us to. She had so much she gave me. I want to be capable to giving these gifts to my grandchildren.
Sometimes who I actually am just slaps me across the face and I fall over from the shock and grief of how far away I am from who I want to be.
The fall fair has often been a triumph and it is something I have so deeply treasured.
I am thankful for that. Next year I hope we can try again with more positive results.
As always I know truth.
The truth is I can work harder to create the family culture I wish for. I can be the grandmother I desire to be. I have each day to start afresh.
However the other truth is that I often struggle and am often exhausted from the weight of what I carry. I am thankful that I have tools to acknowledge the weight and choose to put some of aside. I can also acknowledge that I have young children and don't sleep much.
I am so thankful for all the fall fairs our family has attended and loved. I am so thankful for all the memories of rapt faces, the joy of winning prizes for crafts and baking, of seeing my grandparents there for the last time, for the times my own mother came or when my sister and her family come, the shrieks of glee on the rides and the sweetness of all the animals being shown by the 4H kids.
There have been such great times there and it has meant something.
Onwards we go
xo
Tansy
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