surrounded

I'm happy because yesterday was Christmas with one family, and today is another, and then tomorrow is Christmas, and I am definitely on board with stretching these things out as long as possible. On the other hand, these past six or seven days have been a marathon of everything, even when staying at home under the blankets. It happens. I'd had weeks at a time of moderate to good behavior from my body/cells/immune system, but I still wasn't whole, so I think I knew this downturn was coming. I'm getting through this.

S couldn't wait to have me open the gift he'd bought me--it's a print of a painting I'd had my eye on for three years. It is perfectly whimsical and I almost don't want to hang it up, because I like seeing it propped up against the coffee table, inches away. My husband's family Christmas yesterday included a gift of a gorgeous oil lamp more than 100 years old, which is one of those things that had always been on my unspoken list. How did they know?! It makes me feel loved. The coffee I'm drinking makes me feel warm. The jingle bell necklace around my neck makes me feel like I should be playing, so I probably will, to the best of my body, and it'll be another lovely day.

Merry Christmas to all who read this. I hope you smell cinnamon and spice and feel surrounded, accepted, and at home. 

active

I need to issue a correction, or an update, because a half our later S read my psychic plea and came home instead of staying out late, and I let my angsty ridiculous out and then it was gone, and then, even without asking, my best friend also read my psychic plea and came over with her husband and chocolate and holiday cheer, and in the end we were watching How I Met Your Mother and planning for the future, and it was exactly, exactly, what I didn't ask for. Today I'm wearing jingle bells around my neck and though I've only been at work an hour have already purposefully busted through a wall I'd manufactured and am not-blaming those who are not-to-blame, and there's the holiday party this afternoon, and. This is all just providing reinforcement for my passive aggressiveness, I guess. I'll think about that.

passivity

I am thoroughly rotten today. Bad day at work. Bad skull day. Bad diet day. Bad news day. Bad uterus day. And I was passive aggressive when I should have been aggressive, and so S left to go out for the second evening in a row, leaving me sitting alone on the couch with a balled up kleenex in my hand and memories of the panic attacks that were crippling me a year ago.
I am feeling very needy without the ability to verbalize what, exactly, I need. Clearly I need what's coming at the end of the week: a twelve day break from work. Turns out it's very, very hard not to be poisoned by what happened with the non-job last week. Maybe by January I'll be kinder.
I should be better than I am. I have, right now, the thing I crave most of the year, in the lighted Christmas tree in a dim living room. Presents underneath with ribbons I curled myself. I have fresh chocolate chip cookies straight out of the oven. I have Netflix. I have the ability, if not the strength of character, to ask for help. None of this is helping, probably because all I'm actually pulling off is passivity and silence, inside and out. It's dumb. I want S. 

something to see

You know how sometimes you just have the strong feeling that if you keep your eyes open, there will be Something To See. I felt this on the drive home from my parents' house this afternoon. Thinking, maybe a kingfisher, or cat stalking through a field. What I got was the top half of an ass crack of a man leaning behind his truck's open hood. I'm still delighted that I was right. 

fair

It might be good to not be such a consummate whiner or to not say anything at all for weeks until something goes wrong. But yesterday I was passed over for a promotion I wanted and deserved, and this morning was locked out of my workstation for the first half hour because of a not-my-fault password snafu, and my eyelids are swollen because I had a Thing last night wherein I got very, very upset and snotty over disrespect, penury, and the debilitating disease routing my father in law, and I just kind of want to get that OUT.

I would much, much rather be curled up on the couch at home in front of the Christmas tree maybe with some spicy tea, and the curtains shut.

In spite of this and because I am who I am, I'll dig around for some things to add weight to the other end of the scale. Like this video. And the free coke up in the staff lounge. And the picture my husband texted me of his belly. And only six days after this one of work until the university closes til January. And the cluster of people who had been and still are rooting for me. Oh, and my health. It's getting much better, thanks. The ratio of clear headed steady footed days to days I feel like my skull is lining itself with jalapenos and the world is spinning is shifting closer to 'fair'. Whatever. Husband's belly and I will make it work.

lousy day to

not have a late-morning run across town to our storage site, because I
could use a half hour to self-pity in peace.