Hero no more.

Christmas is in one week.  If the calender didn't tell me that, or the malls insist it...I wouldn't believe it. I'm having a hell of a time getting into the Christmas spirit.  And so is everyone else around me...maybe it's because we haven't had any snow...or just that everything seems to be pushing forward at full throttle.  I usually love Christmas.  Not for the shopping...we all know how much I am not a fan...too many years of retail. But to share time with family and friends.

There it is.

There is no Christmas Eve with my parents this year.  And as much as I try not to think about it, or pretend that it doesn't bother me.  It does.  Everyday.  It wears on me.  Sometimes it's a passing thought, something someone says triggers a memory, a question never to be answered.  Sometimes it's more consuming.  Mood shifting. 

I am not angry.

I am beyond that stage of my grief.  Though admittedly, I do flow back into it from time to time.  Despair is probably a more accurate description at this point.  I am saddened by the events that have unfolded over the last year.  Never did I imagine that we would end up here.  You can call me stubborn, selfish, ungrateful...insert negative remark, gremlin thought here...

But this is not the truth.

My decision to walk away, to separate myself was not done in spite.  But in self-preservation.  For myself, my family, my career, my sanity.  It would have consumed me, more than it does now at times, if I had stood by.  I would have become enmeshed.  The hero. 

I am no hero.  Not anymore.

It was the most difficult decision of my life, one that I grapple with regularly.  I was licensed this week--a very exciting accomplishment professionally.  I wanted nothing more than to share that with my mother.  Father.  For them to be proud of me.  But that is not where we are.  Or may ever be again.

My parents taught me to stand up for what I believe to be right.

And I am.