Still Here.

So.  Here we are, February again.  The holidays happened.  Winter is still happening.  I probably owe y'all an update, yes?

The extended family converged not once, but twice this year - at Thanksgiving here in flyover country and again in CA for Christmas.  There was a remarkable lack of drama - which is, I suppose, dramatic in its absence.  Turns out we actually all like each other.

There were no Christmas cards.  Whoops!  There was a photo shoot but then….  yeah.

Papa Fritz was very excited to take the kids out on his new boat.  I had more than a couple nightmares about the ocean swallowing my children, and practical angst my girl would freak the fuck out on the boat, but she LOVED it and no one drown.  Win! 

I am tired though.  On New Years Eve it dawned on me that my son is 9 1/2 years old and the time given me to shape him into a reasonable human being is half over.  What will he remember of his childhood?  The unending grind of school, homework and his frazzled mommy - or the Christmas we went sailing with Papa?   What will I remember of these years?  They seem too much a blur to claim the victory of a life well lived.  Too many days are spent grinding thru work-dinner-homework with an eye on the clock and yet ten years just vanished.  At the end I'll only have this woefully neglected blog and random snapshots to remind me my children were once small and needy… shouldn't I be savoring it all more?  Or is that just so much hippy-HuffPost-airbrushed bullshit?

I'm obviously in the midst of some mid-life post-vacation late-winter existential meh.  I'm weirdly not unhappy and we have lots of good things coming up, but this milestone has done a number on my head.  A situation not improved when I re-watched the jelly bean video.  Which is silly and triggers my sweet tooth, but I figure I only have about 14,000 beans left.  What shall I do?

                                

Through the pink

Matt & I have both been working long, intense hours lately, culminating in a not very healthy or productive "discussion" about who has been doing what domestic chores.  Good times!  Then he left for a two week long business trip.

The first day he was gone I overslept by two full hours.  The second day my car wouldn't start.  That night the dishwasher nearly exploded, forcing me to manhandle the much feared circuit breaker box.  As my Gigi liked to say, "That'll learn ya."

Yet in the midst of all the chaos this month, I have been gifted moments of peace.

A rare walk thru the early morning drizzle with my wolf-like puppy.

These two, always.

Even these times.
Actually…. especially these times. 

Buying groceries, a much loathed task, and finding the oysters my Gigi always bought.

My drive home through pink light.

There was also a recent moment when I fled my desk, this stack of paper, and the inane, incessant late Friday chatter of my co-workers.  I walked into the break room just as the rainy clouds parted and the fridge stopped humming.  The sudden sun and silence were damn near spiritual.

It is a mystery to me why these moments come - what slight shift in the brain chemistry allows me to find beauty in fleeting moments while other days I'm left gritting my teeth and slurping coffee.  Perhaps I'm being too cynical in assuming it is chemical, and should just be grateful my cold, old heart can still find magic in the world.  Even on the odd day.