Winter Wonder(land)

My one loyal reader (hi Barbara) pointed out to me that I had not posted for a while. She said this as we were sampling local homebrew brewed as part of a chemistry thesis.

I couldn't help but indulge her with a new post.

This is my first holiday season in over 4 years that I have been single. It's my first adult holiday in which I have not accompanied partners to in-laws, divided up time between households like a present-laden version of Romeo and Juliet. Gone are the midnight fights over who gets Christmas Day versus New Years Eve, and the frantic driving between Michigan and Illinois.

Of course along with the seemingly good (awkwardly schlepping 4 dozen Christmas cookies along state lines, from mother to mother? no more!) there's the bittersweet memories of Christmas Past. Like Scrooge, I can't help but soften when I think of the years spent at the Christkindlemarkt or the Marshall Fields Windows. The give and the take of a holiday alone is a profound change from where I was last year.

Which is, in part, why I have not gotten off the couch other than to cook macaroni and cheese all day. Why I went to Joanne's and bought 6 skeins of wool, cast on a sweater, and finished a sleeve, all within 12 hours. Why beer bottles trail from my couch to my kitchen, and why my phone is on silent.

This Holiday Season all I want is to be. To be single. To be independent. To be in a life that is, for the first time, entirely mine. My apartment; my animals; my car; my job; my yarn; my beer. There's a selfishness in claiming this, and I recoil from the list of "me! me! me!" but I think that to be, to revel in the silence of one's thoughts, history, future and present is not only important, it is essential.

So i'm sitting, drinking coffee until 2pm and beer until 2am, reading, writing, knitting, cooking, piecing together a puzzle. There are lots of pieces to fill in but the ones that are falling into place are painting a lovely picture.