Testing the Waters of 2010

*TAP TAP*

Is this thing on?

*Covering eyes, peering into dark crowd*

Yeah, hi. I’m back. Been MIA awhile but, you know, the holidays and all.

And how did those go? Busy, very busy, lots of family. But really, I just wanted the whole “night-before-Christmas-day-of-Christmas” stuff over with. Usually being around family makes my missing my mom better. And it did. But still. My dad was just so sad. And I was just so sad. And I know my brother was sad. We didn’t exactly stand there and weep and blow our noses on each other’s shoulders or anything. But it was understood. We said nothing when we sat down to eat with one less person. We nodded when we handed over gifts she had bought for us early in the spring. We weren’t exactly clinking glasses and singing “Joy to the World”. We just went through with the whole deal. The kids loved it, and it was certainly comforting to be together so, really, it went fine.

(“Fine”. Yeah. Kind of laughing at myself for writing that. “Fine” is kind of my family’s code word for “it sucked”. “Fine” means that there were no appropriate superlatives. “Fine” is about all you’ve got. So “fine” is never promising.)

We even spent a little time looking at old Christmas movies of years past when my mother was alive. We found her, seconds at a time, before she darted out of the camera shot. But seeing her really did not seem odd at all. She was there, THAT was normal. Her being gone NOW was the weird part.

And we talked about her in the present tense. “Oh mom HATES it when that happens!” “Mom would know where that is.” She is still part of our present after all.

And so the hustle and bustle and the “lets fill up every second of time with busy activity so we don’t get sad” is over. I don’t know about the rest of my fam, but I am certainly breathing a grateful sigh of relief that we’re a few days into 2010 finally. A fresh start, new possibilities, lets go.

Although, my usual inspiration for blog fodder seems a little off right now. Maybe its just post holiday exhaustion. Whatever.

So to remedy that, this afternoon I logged in here, deleted the stacks of spam that had built up, opened up a new post and, well, here I am. Not much point to it. Just kind of checking in. Because sometimes I think just jumping in and writing is the best cure for writers block. It reminds you how much FUN it can be.

Cuz isn’t this fun???

Well. Yeah. Anyway.

Stick with me folks. 2010 is bound to rock out and I am sure as hell not going anywhere.