Nothing to Be Ashamed of in Today's World....

Today was the February birthday party at my family home. My uncle, my mom, my son and I all share birthday's during the month of February. This year there weren't an over abundance of gifts exchanged which is a bit rare for my family. However, this year has been a bit different than we're all used to. We're all pretty much dependent on a non-existent construction industry. Our levels of dependency vary greatly. My dad is near retirement and has owned his own company for over 25 years and my uncle is retired and simply picks up extra jobs here and there to supplement life. They both are sitting in such a position where they can sit back and really dislike this economy and also know they maybe can't totally enjoy a life of leisure quite as soon as they wished, but they don't have to worry about losing anything. I have two sisters, one I honestly can't say anymore what effect this economy is having on her life, although it's also related to construction, as she moved a great distance away and there's a rift there that I can only hope time will eventually heal. My other sister was at my parent's house today. Her husband has actually had to relocate for work to a job way up near the arctic circle or face unemployment. She's managed to hold onto her job here and is still doing ok aside from being separated from her husband a great majority of the time. My husband and I have been holding onto our own company for the past few years through some really rough times. We've sold off most of our equipment, all of our toys and the savings account is gone. We're down to trying to decide what our next move is going to be and we honestly don't have that answer since the only thing we both know is how to keep going as long as we possibly can find a way.

I feel really good today though for one reason. Today it felt like, for maybe the first time in a long time, that we really were together as a family. Today there was no competition, no comparison and no expectation. Today it actually felt that there was acceptance. Maybe this will turn into a different kind of world in some good ways too.