Empty

This is the first holiday season without my step-daughter or any other children for that matter. The emptiness inside this house is numbing. Her room which was once full of life now contains only boxes of what once was. Only the cats go in there these days.

Around this time each year the house would have the aroma of freshly baked cookies and the table would be covered with them. There would be gobs of frosting sporadically on the table and a child in the midst of a sugar high at the end. Now we have a stack of yesterday’s mail and uneaten fruit on the table.

I have been ordered to cook a full Thanksgiving dinner, even though it is just my Master and I. So now a 12 pound turkey is sitting in the frig ready to go in the oven. All the side dishes are aligned and ready to go. Staring at it makes me think about how I have no one to share it with. It just feels so empty.

I also didn’t feel like putting up the Christmas tree this year. It just reminds me of everything that once was but once again I was ordered to put it up. The reason behind the order was so the cats would have something to climb up. Our cats have a track record of knocking down the Christmas tree at least once every year. So rather than putting a tree up for our non-existent family we are putting a tree up for the cats.

It just feels so empty here. I want to move away from this area and start over. But I feel like that would also be like running away from my problems which is something I have done my whole life. I suppose on the Brightside I don’t have to figure out if I should move or not. That is not my place.

-emma