12:23 AM strikes again.
I tried to retaliate by watching another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but that just made me sleepy. Which was the point, and almost worked until I got a late-night text just as I was dozing off, and here I am now, wide awake and wishing I had turned my phone off before bed. Alas, I'm never that smart.
The past few days have been overcome with hustle and bustle, holiday preparations, a strong feeling of loneliness and music. And writing. I did some more work on the short story fairy tale, but it's nowhere near completion yet.
It snowed here during the first part of the week!
I remember it very clearly.
I was at Ben and Natalie's house on monday night for dinner; the forecasts called for snow but we saw no sign of it. Raelyn and I were driving home at around 9PM when suddenly, the first flakes started to fall. Slowly at first, barely visible. But then they grew.
We listened to Christmas music most of the way home, and as I sat there, humming along to Frank Sinatra's Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and staring out of the window at the black night and white flakes falling all around us, I had the strongest urge to just break down and cry.
Snow is the least pretentious out of all precipitious substances. I think that's why it made me cry. I felt like I had been putting up a front all day long that day, and I was tired of it. Then the snow started falling and made me feel like I didn't have to put up that front any longer, and then I realized how exhausted I was and I just couldn't take it anymore, so I cried.
It felt good.
The next day was Tuesday, and I still felt like I was putting up a front.
I went to Singer Hill with Natalie, Raelyn and Charity, and we all wrote for an hour.
I love having people in my life who deeply understand the same things that I deeply understand.
Mutual understanding begets mutual appreciation and mutual appreciation begets mutual acceptance. And wonderful hugs. Life's beautiful when you find someone else who shares the same sort of heart you do. Whether it's an actor's heart, musician's heart, or a writer's heart, that sort of mutual understanding begets a lifetime of reassurance and love. I felt better after that, although my only wish is that it could have lasted longer.
That night I tucked up in bed and watched A Streetcar Named Desire which, strange as it may seem to those of you who are lucky enough to have watched it, is a strongly comforting film to me. It sort of puts everything to rights in this unstable, unruly world we live in. I'm not sure how, I think it might just be the memories I have associated with it. They involve the people who know my heart the best, because they share the same one. :)
Wednesday dawned bright.
Julia -style omelettes and fresh coffee made the previous few days' offhandedness seem distant and unimportant.
My parents and I escaped from the house for a few hours and saw the newest Disney movie, Tangled.
We were adamant we knew all the voice-overs by ear.. Amanda Seyfried, Adrian Brody, and Raquel Welch.
We were desperately wrong on all of them. It was fun...:)
The rest of Wednesday was spent preparing for Thanksgiving. I was appointed to set the table, which in our house, is a pretty big deal. My mom is infamous for her beautiful table settings, so if you're still living under her roof and it's your job to set the table, you want to make sure it's done absolutely perfectly.
I like to think I did a fairly nice job, but I'm too afraid to ask. ;)
What really hit me wednesday night as I was going to and from the hutch, to the butler's pantry, to the table and back again, was how much I missed my grandmother.
Years ago, the hutch sitting in our front hallway belonged to her. Residing in it are all of my mom's favorite dishes, the dishes that belonged to Grandma Annie. Ever since I was little, I have always loved looking at the beautiful things inside that hutch. Over the years, some things have been broken, some things have been taken out and put somewhere else, and some things have been put in and rearranged countless times.
The one thing that never changes, however, is the smell. Ever since as far back as I can remember it's always smelled the same. Among the beautiful etched glass dishes, and hand painted salt and pepper shakers from distant shores, there is a shallow brown dish with my grandmother's favorite potpourri in it. That dish of potpourri has been in there ever since before I came along, and no matter who inherits the hutch, I can guarantee you right now that that dish of potpourri is never going to leave that cabinet.
The smell alone is enough to reduce me to cosmic tears.
It's every comforting, sad, beautiful, tragic, overjoyed, aching, unyielding and familiar thing that you could ever imagine, all at once. It's enough to make your heart hurt a little bit, because of the memories and the feeling of emptiness.
Like you've lost something. I have lost something. I've lost her, and very rarely does a day go by when I don't think about her and wish with all my being that I could have her back, if only for a day.
Thanskgiving is always an emotional holiday. Literally. There are so many endorphins in all that food, it makes you go sort of emotion-crazy.
But it's always the one holiday that makes me miss her the most and I don't think it's because of the food, or because of the tradition of remembering what you're thankful for, or because it's always spent with family...
I think it's because it's the one holiday that she's chosen to come down and be among us as much as she can. It's the holiday that I feel her around the most, and I think that's another reason why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
It's like she's there, celebrating with us, thankful for one more day that she can almost spend with us, until we can all someday see her again.
I would give away every single book, every single cd, every guitar, every movie, every notebook, and every dollar that I have if I could just listen to her voice telling me all that she's seen from Heaven.
I would give myself and everything else I had if I could just hold her hand and talk with her for a little bit.
I miss her so much.
She's the glue that has held this family together from the beginning.
I just wish she had been given the chance to hold us together for a little longer. And that is selfish of me, but I can't help it. I didn't get as much time with her because I'm so much younger than my siblings and cousins, but that's life. God makes everything happen for a reason, and I'm learning to be thankful about it even though it's really hard.
Thursday morning was met with long-awaited-for contentment and happiness.
Thanksgiving was beautiful in every way and not to be cliched, but I am sincerely thankful to have experienced it with my family and close friends, and my Grandma Annie.
That brings us to today, which was spent in recovering from last night's merriment, and cleaning the hurricane mess that great parties always seem to leave behind. I also worked, which was less than exciting because it was completely dead by 7'0'clock.
Tomorrow, or I should say 'later today' will be spent decorating for Christmas and hopefully shaking that annoying front that seems to creep up every now and then, feeding on loneliness and inconsistencies.
.....
If I didn't have to run my butt off in order to work off all the excess food I consumed over the past few days, I might have made myself pancakes tomorrow morning.
The things we do for skinny people jeans.
:)
Goodnight world, sweet dreams.
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