to know it for the first time.

This isn't a Christmas blog. Not really. It's a response to home and family. Growing older, my friends - and I - wrestle with what home has come to mean. For some Christmas is the same happy time it ever was, and for others (I think most) it's a glaring reminder of everything we didn't turn out to be. The one time a year we all have to sit down and look at one another, regardless of whether we like what we see.

Family is one kind of home. The inescapable kind. :) But true home is where we belong. It can be family or any place we're drawn by something bigger than us. I've come to understand we rarely choose where we belong. We can want it to be one place or another, but home is something we have to find and when we get there, we know. Home is the place you walk away from over and over and the path you take leads you always back, and each return brings a deeper love for the place than you knew before. Home is the love that follows you, that brings you back no matter what you had in mind.

What family and home have in common, I think, is that they're never what we expected them to be. They're fraught with disappointment, frustration, and especially, re-evaluation of what we believed was important. Family and home aren't easy, let alone the idyllic images we look to at Christmastime. But with their shortcomings, their stubborness, the secrets we pretend not to know, they're beautiful. Beautiful like we couldn't have the same life without them. And the best of their beauty, or the worst, is that we will always love them. Whether we like it or not.

all i want for christmas is PEAS

Shaniqua has developed a disgusting obsession with people food. You can't eat a piece of toast without her shamelessly climbing in your lap, daintily sniffing and (if you don't stop her) taking a lick. But what was once an obnoxious habit is now fodder for my pathetic sense of amusement: I'm feeding her peas. Peas by the spoonful. Ahahaha. SHE thinks she's getting away with something glorious. I'm cackling as the she gobbles the most shrivelled, overcooked vegetables I can pick out.

In other news: nothing. That's all that's happened this week. I thought with unlimited free time I'd eventually get productive, but as it turns out, wasting time never gets boring. Ever! I couldn't tell you what I've done since classes ended, but it probably involves a lot of sleeping.

So. In the two days left before I leave town, I will vacuum, dust, sweep, clean the bathroom, put away laundry, fix my bike, score neuropsych tests, enter data, come up with a manuscript topic, come up with a coding scheme for paragraphs, finish my lit review, start my fellowship application, and cut my toenails. Yep. Right after I watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

she's going the distance! she's going for speed!

Except not really achieving speed of any kind. "Going for" is the phrase of interest. Still, as a girl who faked asthma attacks to get out of middle school gym class, this is progress.

Yesterday I ran my first 5K, the Jingle Bell Run for arthritis. And - did not come in dead last! I even had a pretty decent time for a first-timer, which I'm not going to mention here because if it's not decent and everyone was being nice, I choose blissful ignorance.

Next to me are Stacey, Lindsey, and Lisa, fellow first-years whose credits extend well beyond being better runners than me.



It was fun... even in 30-DEGREE WEATHER. Once again, Florida, wtf? Just when I think you couldn't be any more backwards, you prove me wrong with arctic temperatures on the one day I could really use the nice weather.

some thoughtful bitching (is a blog ever anything else?).

Never in my life can I remember so many ups and downs (mostly downs) as there have been the past several months. I'm trying to be happy where I am. Usually I'm pretty good at that. But happy seems to have turned into that flaky friend who swears up and down she'll be at your party and never shows. It's impossible to predict whether today I'll be energized and grateful to be alive (which happens often enough) or want to climb back into bed and sleep away as much of my life as I can. Mostly, it's just not like me to be so frequently down for so long. As I look up "Adjustment Disorder" in my DSM. We psychologists find the most pathetic ways to console ourselves.

I realize it's pretty normal. Many of us first-years are struggling to be content in our new home. One fifth-year told me she cried for the first two years (which um, incidentally, not happening with me. Life is both too short and too long to stay sad for years). I also realize, newly, that it's not about missing places or people. Yeah, I loved Chicago. But I also loved Leeds and I'll never go back to it. I love my family and friends, but I've made it through a fair chunk of my life without them being rightnexttome and if I have to (and I do), I can make it through this chunk without them too.

What I'm trying to say is you love lots of people and places and some of them stay part of your life but few stay physically in your life the whole time. And that's as it should be. What we do need is love where we are, in some form or another. Some loves happen entirely in solitude. Whatever it is, I don't have it yet. But what do you expect? Worthwhile things take time. (Although they don't always! Can't I have some NOW?)


ALSO:

This may seem like a ridiculous disclaimer, but I realize my complaint occurs entirely in luxury. So I'm lonely. Sad for me. But much of the world is suffering a whole lot more than emotional discomfort. There are people who don't have loving family or friends to bitch to about living in a town full of chain stores and strip malls. There are people who can't speak freely at all, let alone post whiny blogs about how much Florida sucks (but you do, Florida, you suck so much). There are people, lots of people, who are dying. For stupid reasons. Who don't get clean water and basic medical treatment which is so easily available. Who will never live long enough to experience the possibilities which most of us take for granted.

So, you know, boo hoo for me in adjusting to my brilliant opportunity for an advanced degree at a top tier institution where I'll be guaranteed a comfortable living, invigorating career, and the freedom to bitch about being lonely sometimes.