MERRY MERRY BLAH BLAH

You know why I love Boxing Day? (that’s the day after xmas for all you yanks…) Because it means Christmas is over and we don’t have to listen to anymore crap Christmas music. I mean really. How can people stand to listen to those same fucking songs over and over and over, year after year?… they’re not even that good of songs. Silent night my ass, not with all those jingle bells rocking round the Christmas trees decking the halls and jamming pigeons up pear trees.

Fuckin hell.

Christmas really is such a production in the states, and my family is no exception. My mother is a bit of a Martha Stewart, and so every year there are perfectly little wrapped jems under a perfectly decorated tree while some sweet little cider kind of beverage cooks on the stove and makes the whole house smell delicious and safe and there are candles in the windows protecting us from the outside and all we do is cook and eat and be lazy.

It’s pretty fucking awesome, but as with everything in my family and in this country, there are a million expectations and responsibilities and expectations. Yesterday everyone went sledding and when I opted to stay home for a precious few minutes of quite time you would have thought I told them I wasn’t coming home for xmas or something.

“What do you MEAN your not coming!!!! You HAVE to come!!!”

Actually, no. I don’t.

I just needed a little down time. A little time without food, or cooking or cleaning or talking about what we are going to cook, clean or eat. (As I write this now, everyone is down stairs eating AGAIN. I don’t think I can EVER eat again. Fucking a. TOO MUCH.)

Re-entering the states at this time of the year is just, a lot. These people are fucking crazy. Americans are nuts. Wound so tight, so predictable so exhausting. And the gluttony is especially apparent and overwhelming this time of year.

I’ve been crying more than usual. And the usual is sort of never for me. I’m not a big crier. But I have wept like a baby a few times since coming home. It’s the strangest thing. I just get so overwhelmed. It’s not rocket science why… call it sadness about not being in Rome, call it sadness abut having had the dream of living in Italy for so long and being home so quickly after that began, call it being simply TIRED, call it being bored at home, call it searching in a REAL way for the first time in my life, call it not being alone after spending a year alone virtually each and every day, call it being 30… call it whatever you want.

The simple truth is I can’t do the things like I did before I left. I am different. And when I try and pretend I’m not, I freak out and have to lock myself in a bathroom or a closet or someshit and have a good long hard hard cry.

It’s a new thing for me. I’m not a huge fan of the new weepy chase. But what the fuck. At least I’m listening to myself, rather than trudging on, turning it into stress and needing a massage that I never get. Fuck that.

I pretty much always try to remain present in any given circumstance- you know show up, be present. But sometimes I just need to crawl up to my bed room with my cats and pound away on my computer for a while. Because even though I’m here, in this house, in Colorado, with my family right now. But in my heart, I am a million trillion miles away… in a little secret garden with my cats, and the sun, where it is quiet, still and I don’t need to cry.