A beautiful and mysterious lady

My knee hurts. It hurts more than I'd like it to for someone who got back to the gym after a week of neglect. I cannot at all confidently state that I was on my best eating behavior during the week I was away for the holidays. I felt weighty going into it and now I can, at best, describe myself as "Holiday Husky." But it seems a superficial purpose has come along to motivate me into wanting to drop the weight. Frankly, it's not so much dropping weight, as feeling good about how I look, and right now I am not a fan. Onto the blog...

My brother just texted me to let me know that the house in Ottawa felt quiet again, now that I had left to come back to California. It's a strange moment when I'm standing in the airport. I cry because I'm sad to leave these people I love so much, yet there's a feeling of home awaiting me on the other side of my journey. Sad to leave home to go home. And I think of the home I live in here. It's quiet, I rarely play music and tend to sit on the internet for far too long, chatting and just, looking. When in Ottawa we all have time to sit and chat, and watch movies, and play games, and make houses into homes.

I'm at work, and I'm 29 years old, and I'm sitting at a desk wearing a striped purple long sleeved shirt under a t-shirt that has a picture of a cartoon robot. I wonder if that's what past me envisioned as future me? I doubt it. Thinking of this version of me, paired with the comfort I got from going home this past Christmas, I remind myself that you can only go home for so long before you have to come back and face the day to day routine that is, as Prince put it, "this thing called 'life.'" I don't like it much, sometimes, being a grownup, and that's probably why I'm wearing a shirt that has a picture of a cartoon robot on it. And sometimes I don't understand what this whole "growing up" thing even means. But it's happening and accepting it is too. I understand that everyone does it differently, but that one day it's just that. You look around, and you and your relatives, the people you've seen pass through time, all have grey hairs, and hard lines, and that's it: You're a grown up.

I think I'm going to wear a dress with polka dots on it for NYE this year, and maybe some pink tights.

A Promise...

to myself mostly.

I was just listening to my favorite podcast, This American Life. This weeks podcast was #342 How to Rest in Peace. I've thought a lot about my mortality and I'm happy to say that I've accepted that I will die, and I hope to do it peacefully, many many years from now. That's what I learned in 2009. Feelings don't change: happy will feel how it always feels, sad will feel how it always feels, and I will experience these things through my life, time and time again, reminding me what it is we live for, and I hope that life is long, but there will be an end, and when that end comes, I'll know I'll have felt it all to the best of my abilities.

BUT until that time I'm making a promise to myself that I will try harder to document it("blog" it) so that I can remember what it's like to be on this rollercoaster. This was a failed year in blogging, going stretches of two months at a time without an entry, and that is hardly enough to piece together the story of the fabulous Becky Mair.

Happy Holidays.