...and a happy new year....

From the "Merry Wives of Windsor" "Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness."

that's what i hope to do. i'm spending a quiet new year's, watching a basketball game with a friend, and eating leftovers from the all week/weekend christmas party. and i hope to have a glass of wine or three, and fire up a duralog. and watch it snow. and a lot of people would say this is all lame. not really a new year's celebration at all. no ringing in, no one to smooch on the stroke of 12, no noisemakers or champagne. no, it's not- much. but it's mine.

and when i went to the grocery to pick up a case of duralogs, the man in front of me smiled and he said "if that's all you've got, please, go ahead of me." and i answered "thank you, that's very sweet of you!" and he says, "it's a good day for a fire."

"yes, it is." i answered. and we exchanged smiles. it was a nice little moment.

and i'm hoping it all to be a portent of the year to come. people smiling at me. being kind to me. and i will resolve to drink down any unkindness that comes my way.

happy new year.

i won't be home for christmas

well and of course, i am not home. home is not here. this is where my mother lives, and where my son lives, and where i used to live, until recently. but THIS is not my home.

they say "home is where your heart is." and well, let's just face it- for a very long long time, here has not been where my heart was. i'm not sure exactly where my heart or my home were exactly, but i do know they weren't here. and

it sure seems that i stayed here an awfully long time for not feeling at all at home.

here i was unhappy. and grumpy. and sad. and lost. and i felt alone. even in a crowd. or maybe, especially in the "crowds" here.

and now that i've moved away- even while i've spent maybe about the same amount of time alone- i don't really feel alone there. i don't feel lonely really. i just feel content or something.

but you know what? i find that i don't smile as much there. you know why? not because i'm not happier, but because i am happier. in that i don't feel like i have to fake being happy all the time. i can just be.

on the way here this morning, while driving, i turned on the radio. and the usual cacaphony of christmas carols popped up. and well, there are actually some that i like- so i left it on. and i suddenly found myself singing along to "i'll be home for christmas..."

and i started thinking about that "home" to this person was with the person he loved and with the person who loved him. and i suppose a lot of people can relate to that. and that's why the song is a popular classic. but me, i can't relate to this at all. i don't have this. and what's more, i have no dreams of it anymore. those dreams are dead.

and it seems i'm ok with that now. i'll just be. and i won't be home for christmas.

charmed, i'm not sure.

things were not going well yesterday. i got stuck in traffic 3 times while trying to find and pick up the gift coveted by my niece. three other gifts i wanted to pick up and cross off my list had to wait because i ran out of patience, energy, and time. it was rather icy, and my car was acting funny so i opted to miss a party back in my hometown, and that made me sad. i had to finish up something for work that had me puzzled for way longer than it should have. my project for my family gift was at a standstill because i just could not remember how to do something that it took me two days to figure out how to do the first time.

i went to bed, discouraged and not pleased. it seemed like everything i touched yesterday broke or something. i had the vague, yet not really hopeful, thought as i drifted off to sleep that "tomorrow" might be better.

and well, lo and behold, it was. i woke up and suddenly remembered how to finish my project. my friends texted to tell me they missed me, that it wasn't a party without me. i got all the gifts i had here wrapped. i went out and my car ran just fine, and i picked up my two presents without incident. my sister in law and called and told me she'd found another that i'd been searching for. i finished decorating. i fixed my balcony display. i finished decorating the apartment for my after Christmas guests. i had to wait when i went to pick up something else and got rewarded for my patience with a free giftcard. i crossed 7 "to-do's" off my list of things to do before the big day.

everything just ran like clockwork. and now i'm sitting here with a glass of wine in the glow of my tree, with the wrapped presents underneath, all peaceful and stuff. trying to decide if i should open up a friend's card or not. savoring the moment. very nice.

so how do you think tomorrow will go?

amazing grace.

is there ever anything that amazes you? very little amazes me anymore. but this evening, as i listened to coverage of the horrific school shooting, i was absolutely amazed and stricken by the words of one of the teachers recounting her experience, shepherding her little ones in a bathroom to keep them safe.

she had the presence of mind and the love in her heart to tell them "i want you all to know i love you." she says she wanted to tell them that- because she was afraid they were going to die and she wanted to make sure the last thing her babies would remember hearing was not the gunshots and horrible sounds, but that someone loved them.

seriously, how do you not want to just bundle this woman up in your arms and cradle her?

what grace. what presence of mind. what heart-touching soul.

yeah, i don't think there is a god really. i believe there is so much evil in the world. and stupidity. and hard-heartedness. and hate. and people who only care about themselves.

but oh my gosh, every once in awhile, you have to stand in awe at how utterly beautiful and caring, lovely, and amazing some people are.

karmalized

you might have gleaned that i don't believe in karma. my life up to now has taught me that events are random and life is chaotic and even worse, it's almost never fair and it doesn't tie itself up with a bow. i've learned the sad, hard way that it doesn't matter if you have good intentions or if you try to do everything right- all goodness and light will not shine on you.

and my observations of other people's lives are that bad people get good things all the damn time.

that's really seems to be how it is in my life. up until now- i'd say. for the first time in quite sometime in my life, someone got exactly what they deserved today. and even better, a good deed on my part did not go punished, as per usual.

i'm seriously wondering if hell is freezing over these days.

except of course i don't really believe in hell either.

my showing slip

so yeah. ok, last post was the antithesis of what i want these posts to be. i do NOT want to dwell on the past. not here and not anywhere. but oops, i was caught with my slip showing. and while maybe it wasn't actually a dwelling on past, but i was a dabbling in it. and i'm sorry.

because it really wasn't the intent of the post. it sort of slipped out of my brain. as often, things do. but the post really and truly was to say that i'm pretty thankful for quite a lot lately.

i guess it's just that i'm a pretty flawed human being. sometimes people make me mad. sometimes i can't forgive things or people. sometimes, i don't make my bed. sometimes i get jealous of people. sometimes it gets my goat when people who don't deserve things, have them.

but that flawed person is really not who i want to be. i want to be perfect. i don't ever want my slip to show.

so a friend told me the other day, this thought: she said she read that when we are jealous of people we should stop and think that we are comparing our everyday lives with their highlight reels.

i don't know. i don't really think i think that. i really do think there are people that have it all. and all of their lives are pretty great. and i want to be one of those people, and i also want to be a kind, gracious, loving, forgiving, and generous person. i want to have and be it all.

but damn it. it's not true. and my slip shows.

something else i've heard said is that if everyone were to put their problems into a common pot and then told that they had to choose a problem to take back out of the kettle, that they'd certainly reach back in and take their own back. that your own problems are preferable to everyone else's. and yours? they aren't really that bad. relatively.

well duh. problems are relative. i was sad because i had no shoes, until i met a guy with no feet. that kind of thing. white people's problems and such.

but on the other hand, there are lots of things that people call problems that i'd really trade mine for. so i don't know.

people also say that you'll be happy if only you are just content with what you have, instead of wishing for what you don't have.

but you know what? how are you happy if you don't have all the basics in life? and waht are basics?

is love a basic? or is it a frill? and what kind of love are you talking about? familial love? physical love? the love of a friend? romantic love? which one of those is or which ones of these are actual needs- if love is a need?

i don't know. i don't know much. my slip shows.

and i don't like it.

For which I am thankful..

so, i'm no grammar expert. yes, i do a bit better in real life than i do on here or on my emails, but i do seriously have to think about what is a conjunctive adverb or a coordinating conjunction and what to do with semi-colons and commas. i also know that i use dependent clauses just like they are real sentences quite a lot in my informal writing. whatever. in addition, i have to watch that i don't say things like "where are you at?" which is bad, because you never end a sentence with a preposition, you know. so around thanksgiving time, isn't "what are you thankful for?" bad grammar?

seems like it. but i don't know. i'm no grammarian, as i say.

but i am a bit of a contrarian. in that i stubbornly refused to participate in this year's November Facebook game of "what are you thankful for?" with the posters every day, for 30 days straight, telling you they are thankful for their children, for their spouses, for their dogs and cats and grandmothers, their jobs, their homes, their cousins, their cars, and their friends, and other assorted sundries.

ironically, while i wouldn't participate, i am this year very grateful about very much.

i'm grateful that i have retired from my soul-sucking job and gotten a new one, that i have moved to a more interesting place, for my apt., for my new job, for my devoted friends (new and old,) for my family, for my paid off car and debt, for enough retirement income that i can survive on this job's pay, for my health, for my mental health. and not to leave off actual thing-things; i'm grateful for my new bike, my new tv, my new printer, and my new furniture.

i'm sure there is a lot more if i think about it. and there is one more thing that i don't really like to think about, that i should mention. and that's that i'm no longer paralyzed by heartache as i was for so long. and i guess i'd be a lot more grateful if i could find a big eraser and erase the jerk out of my mind completely, but at least i've finally come around to the realization that it was not me that blew that whole thing and threw it away, and that instead, it was him being less compassionate and understanding and forgiving than any person, let alone someone who claimed to love you, should ever be.

i always wonder now if someday i'll actually forgive him. but you know, it's hard to forgive someone who willfully kills a living thing. it really is. and so for now, i'll just be thoroughly grateful for that i no longer accept his blame and his accusation that i was "the murderer." It took me a very long time to realize that and That is something for which i am very very thankful.