Jesus, Help me.

Happy New Years!

I haven’t been writing lately.  I even wondered if my blogging days are over and would it matter?  Partly because my computer in my office as been at the “shop being fixed” for a long while and I’m so frustrated with the whole process.  Then, there’s stuff that I really do want to blog about yet can’t really put that stuff out “there.”  So then, I wonder what the point is of writing nonsical stuff.  Is that a word… nonsical?  According to spell check, it isn’t!

How were your holidays? Was your Christmas merry?  How did you welcome in the New Year?  Ours this year was best described as low key.  (Well as low key as is allowed with six boys in the house).  Christmas, I already blogged about.  It was nice having Sanj around puttering for a few days.  Then there was the never-ending question of New Years.  What will we do?  Over the years, we have had a party, the boys invite friends for a sleep over and we have friends over.  Usually during the day, before the party, we rent ice and have a family skate.  This year, we (I) decided that we were going to be low key.  What low key meant, I wasn’t sure.  Part of of me wanted to be invited somewhere. (We hardly get invited… as a family… more on this later).  Whatever we did, I wanted it to be as a family.  (Well, Sammy was partying with friends… this is just a fact of life).

Finally, we decided to to to Whitby, pick up Sanj’s cousin (who is here from India, to live and staying at his parents house) and go see Mission Impossible in Imax.  Very cool.  Parts of it made my stomach sick- heights is obviously an issue for me!  We munched on movie theatre snacks, expensive but yucky pizza and enjoyed the show.  We, then opted to avoid the lines and crowds at restaurants and raided my mother-in-law’s fridge. We then came home, hung out on the sofa and watched Ryan Seacrest/Dick Clark’s Countdown.  Very low key.  I found that we seemed to all need the chillaxing.  Just like that, it was 2012!

New Years Day Sanj’s parents came to spend the night.  I feel the pressure of entertaining when they are here.   I think it was a God thing when the thought of home movies popped into my head.  Perfect!  We spent many hours watching the boys as babies, watching clips of Sanj’s family’s trip to India and getting excited about the thought of visiting there myself someday very soon.

It was interesting to watch some home movies of Sanj with his family before I was of any interest to him.  There is a home movie of the Christmas before me.  Then, 6 months later we would become a couple.  How weird it was to watch… How much has happened since then.  How much we went through together as a couple… the growing and maturing we did to become who we are today.  Sanj found it disturbing to watch.  There was a lot of drama over the years as my in-laws learned that I was here to stay… as we all learned our roles in the new version of family.

Sammy bought a friend that was a girl over to the house… who ended up going to the dinner and movies with us.  It was all fine.  She was a nice girl… as we chatted, Sanj looked at me and laughed and said, “You are going to be some mother-in-law.” Hum… was that a compliment? lol  I do pray that God blesses my boys with amazing ladies in their lives.  I do pray that we love each other and that these girls are loving, kind, gentle, generous, thoughtful, giving, exciting… to my boys.  My journey into marriage and learning to deal with all things in-laws has been quite a ride.  Until recently… not a pleasant one.  My mother-in-law never liked me.  Why? I dunno.  My short answer as I understand it is that I “took away” her son.  Never mind that we/he did everything to make it good… it was her mind set.  I suppose after we learned to turn the other cheek, we learned to let things roll off our back, it didn’t hurt so much.  Or maybe we got better at pretending it didn’t.  As we watched home videos, I noticed that BR (Before Reema) my mother in-law was a happy, it seemed, person.  AR (After Reema) she become unhappy.  All the time.  Hum… It’s hard not to take that personally.  Never mind that I made her son happy.

That whole mother/son relationship is a weird wacky one.  Even with my mom and my brother.  So… am I doomed?  I see/hear some talk of their MIL with love and affection.  I really hope that I will be one of those MIL.  I certainly lived thorough and understand the kind of MIL I don’t want to be.

And yet, as I watched my sons and the girls that seems to make their world go around… the certainly have interesting choices. HUM… So, as of lately, I find myself uttering, “Jesus, Help me.”