Happy New Years.

I haven’t experienced a “steady” holiday since my parents divorced between my eighth and ninth grade years. The five years before they separated, I would spend every Christmas with my Mom and Dad and then fly to Seattle with my brother to visit our biological father. We always spend New Year’s with him. All the years before that we alternated Christmas with one biological parent and New Years with the other. Though, I mostly remember New Years with John, the biological father. John, my brother and I would all go up to the Island—actually named Decatur, an Island in the San Juan Islands where John had built a cabin 20 years ago.  We always just called it The Island as if it were the only island of any importance to anyone who mattered. Often we would make a camp fire by the water at the front of our island property even though it was freezing and more often than not, wet too, but we would set off fireworks which made the unfavorable conditions worth it. I seem to remember having fun.

I started thinking about the cabin today because I spent all of my childhood summers there. I have been alive for 19 summers. Only four of those summers were spent without going to the cabin, and I miss being there every summer I am absent. Even though it is the middle of winter and foggy here today in Alabama, it felt like a summer morning on the Island when the air is still cool from the nighttime chill and the fog is still hovering over the water and hanging on to everything that will hold moisture. I could have closed my eyes and heard the waves beating the shore if I had had time to stop and be still.

Before I knew it I was recalling all the events from the last time I had been at the cabin, the last summer I spent there, the last time I saw my brother. It was the summer after my senior year of high school and my Dad decided he would buy me a plane ticket anywhere I wanted. Even though I wasn’t speaking with our biological father whom my brother lived with, my brother made it possible for me to come visit him and for us to spend 14 days at the cabin with some of our close childhood friends who had spent all of their summers on the same island as well. It was delightful. However, in recalling that short summer I couldn’t help to remember my priorities then and to wish I had spent more time with the people I loved, with my brother, than doing other things. You see, that summer I stayed up late after everyone went to bed and woke up before anyone else to text or call Forester whose voice was pretty much made up the soundtrack of my summer along with a little Lady Gaga and Miike Snow. I feel silly now thinking about how much time I spent on Forester instead of spending time with the forests and beaches and brothers I loved and still love so much. I suppose I cared a lot for him back then. It is funny how people change. Forester, at least on the outside, has changed so much from the person I spent so much time with that summer which makes me wonder if I have changed just as much from the person he knew but can’t see it.

This New Year’s I will be working for my mom at this little food trailer thing she has set up in a kinda festival like place where fireworks will be going off in our community. I think it will be rather lame, but I’m okay with that. Life will be too exciting soon and in a matter of a few short days boredom and lameness might be missed. 

20!

So I've decided what I want to do for my birthday! I want to eat a yummy bowl of Tom Yum soup. It is currently my favorite thing to eat and I've only been able to find a yummy version of it in a restuarant near where my dad lives. So the search is on to find a thai place in Atlanta that serves it well. Thai Chili doesn't have it and neither does Nan. I don't think Thai Lana does either. So far I've found. Spoon Eastside that according to their online menu serves it. Also, Creative Loafing says Spoon is a good place:)

Okay, so i've searched though an entire google page of Thai places in Atlanta. Only one other place then the one above has the soup as well(but they don't put tomatoes in it) and it is called Zen on Ten Asian Bistro and Sushi Bar.

So about that short story....

I finished the rough draft. Well, the first rough draft at least. I don't think it is very good and I'm unsure if it communicates what I want it to communicate, but, hey, at least I finished it.

Can I Just Say

That I am really excited for my classes next semester. And I'm really excited about my gpa. It isn't perfect and according to my mom it isn't that good (she is used to seeing the 4.3 weighted high school gpa), but it is pretty darn okay. I'm just excited to bury my head back into books :)

Family Night

Today has been a very long day and I want nothing more to pull on last year's Christmas pajamas, crawl in between my warm covers, and fall asleep with Hujo Jr. snuggled underneath my chin. (yes, I still sleep with my stuffed animals...normally there about four in my bed at a time.) Mom and I started the day right with Bailey's and Mocha Mint Coffee before grabbing lunch and heading out to face the hoards of people shopping. I'm glad we didn't have to pick up much because there were people everywhere in a way that almost reminded me of a bad horror film. Although we spent most of the day arguing about the proper limits of government--I was trying to communicate that SOPA was a bad thing while my Mom was arguing for conservative politics in general--it was a rather fun trip with my Mom that reminded me why I love Atlanta so much. After we got home, Lindsey came over and we started planning dinner which really means that Lindsey was the decision breaker for my want of baked chicken and my mother's desire to make shrimp creole. We had Mediterranean chicken with tabouli and hummus. After Lindsey and I got back from the grocery store with the ingredients, we all just cooked and drank and talked together. It was nice. I mean, I love my parents, but it was just really nice watching and listening Lindsey talk to them. I mean, Lindsey is more like my mom's daughter then I am--they're more similar in looks, style, and life choices. It works out perfectly too because Lindsey is my best friend who is more talkative then I. So I got to hang out and not have to say much :)  It was very much a family night that was complete whereas it wouldn't have been if Lindsey wasn't there, though I have to admit we are a strange family. Half of the things said should have made my parents really uncomfortable or at least blush. My mom however, is a bit different. Most people are shocked when they meet her because, knowing me, they expect her to be a prude, which is not a word anyone would use to describe my fun loving, clothes hating, care free mother. We were dancing and singing, drinking and giggling, all the while putting a delicious dinner together. Lindsey actually just left. We stayed up late talking after my parents went to bed. I kinda wish she was staying over though because I miss having her around. I remember crying at the beginning of the year when I had time to think about such silly things about how sad I was because my best friend was gone and it was nice to hear that my best friend was crying just week because I wasn't around.

"I Gave Them All Away"

A friend of mine asked me the other day, “if you could do anything you wanted, what would you do?” Without blinking I said I would be a writer, something I’ve wanted to be for a very long time. He told me I should write and that he would read whatever I wrote and provide constructive criticisms if I want them. What I didn’t tell him is that I struggle with creating stories. I’m not good at pulling a plot and a story out of thin air, I’m not good at fiction. Well, this friend’s encouragement had gotten to me and I decided to start really writing a few days ago. I just had to decide what to write. I finally figured out what to write last night. I’ve decided to write what I can, to write what I know.

Semester Wrap-up

It seems appropriate to provide a wrap-up of what was before I start recording the happenings of 2012. How can the year the world ends be appreciated if it isn't recorded properly? Seeing as how the beginning of the year and summer were recorded in Year Twenty, I'll just focus on what has happened this past semester. 

It was a semester full of rainbows and puppies, a semester where everyone was happy and got along perfectly, and, most importantly, no one got sick. 

...that didn't happen. Though thankfully, I am a lot closer to my sisters than I was last year. I depend on them for a lot of things: family, fun, love, shenanigans, and comfort when I'm crying. I love living with Joscelyn though I'm not so sure if she has enjoyed her living situation as much as I do. Granted, the number of times Jos has walked into my room uninvited to find me in tears are numerous. 

The people I am close to are not the same as they were over the summer or even last year. My little has taken my life by storm and is now one of the people who knows most about me. The people that endure my hardships with me, or that deal with my tears the most, are Heather and Jos. I'm closer to some of my guy friends, made some new pretty great ones, and lost one I was really close to. I still keep in contact with Caitlin and Lindsey, two people I know will do anything with and for me. And, overall I'm pretty okay with what has changed and what has stayed the same. Friends come and go, and I'm pretty happy with the people that are in my life today.

I haven't focused academically as much as I should have this semester which I'm not so pleased about. I'm hoping that despite the threat that all my education will be a waste (because where have you been, the world is ending) I will be able to have an academic comeback in 2012. However, regardless if my grades reflect it as well as I would like them too, I feel like I have learned better how to think and learned a lot about how to handle some of the more crisis like aspects of life. 

Driving: by the end of today I will have logged 1,973 miles this semester not including inner city driving. A total of 1 day and 15 hours on the road. Those numbers are just from the beginning of school and not counting the summer trips I went on...  I guess I can't quite stay in one place for very long.

I wonder where I will go next. 

This morning I woke up after trying to sleep in as late as possible because my dad was snoring so loudly last night. Sadly, his uncomfortable bed which he graciously let me sleep in and his load walking all around the other side of the trailer had me out of bed at 8:30. I love my Dad dearly and try to see him whenever I can though that often means driving several hours to visit him and stay either on the couch or on the one bed, his bed, is the 23ft long travel trailer he owns. (Okay, lets be honest--23ft is a total guess. But just to be clear it isn't a nice trailer by any stretch of the imagination nor is it the kind built to actually live in. It is the kind of trailer that you maybe spend three nights in when a city family is pretending to go camping.) Anyway, Dad and I had a really nice day. We went to breakfast and talked for quite some time. He revealed to me how sick he had been lately which was a lot sicker than he has been telling me. He also told me that Toni, his now girlfriend, did his laundry, brought him food, and did all those things you need to live, but that Dad couldn't do after they put the pace-maker in him so it didn't get pulled out. I wish he had told me that he was struggling so badly--I would have come down and helped him--but, I know he didn't tell me just because he didn't want me to leave school to take care of him. He is doing loads better know. He is taking anxiety and sleep medicine now so he can actually sleep instead of staying awake 24/7 waiting for his heart to stop working again. I am so thankful Toni has been here to take care of him and willing to do so. I know it is weird and that my Dad really doesn't need to be in anything serious, neither does she, but I really hope they stay together. I want some degree of normalcy in my Dad's life. It is Christmas time, the season of traditions, and my Dad has none. He can't and/or isn't willing to participate in the traditions of my childhood because they all involve an ex-wife which doesn't sound like any fun for him. We sorta exchanged gifts tonight...which means I gave him the clothes I bought him wrapped up in a jacket because I honestly shopped last minute and didn't have time to wrap them. And I gave him is Christmas ornament because no one else was going to get him one (and we always got our own ornament every year) and the poor fellow doesn't have a tree to put it on. :) he hung it on a mirror hook.
I love my Daddy so much. I wish I could spend more time with him. I got here at 8 last night and I'm leaving in the morning. I don't know why I don't stay longer...I probably should, but I'm not going to for a few reasons. I am very much happy for the community he has created for himself in this little RV park though I wish he was back in Gulf Shores, where I had a room in his house and could visit whenever I wanted to. I suppose here he has a life and there he didn't really.

What else is there to wish for but that he is happy and healthy....

Christmas Time

Yesterday morning at my Mother's house everyone decided, well actually my mother decided, that it was time to decorate the Christmas tree and to put up decorations around the house. So that is exactly what we did. I do not remember the last time my brother and I spent Christmas together or decorated a tree together, but I think it has been at least 4 years if not five years....

My family has a tradition where every year we pick out ornaments, sometimes we pick out our own ornament and other times we pick each other's out for them. My mother has been doing this for my brother and I since we were born so we have 'baby ornaments' and all the other ones that were especially ours and no one else could put them on the tree. (I am now the one who puts up all of my brother's ornaments.)

Well, there were also those ornaments Michael and I fought over and I am assuming we both loved them. 

The one above is a very old ornament. We had three of them, one blue, one red, and I think a green one? All we have now are the blue and red one, and as you  can see they are falling apart. My brother and I would hide them next to the trunk of the tree at random heights. I know we would try to hide them from each other so that the other wouldn't move it, but I also think we hid them next to the trunk so the sequins would catch and reflect the light given off by the Christmas lights decorating the tree. 

Well I was shopping the other day for my mother and found another ornament. The first ornament I've bought for my future family tree, an ornament for my children to hide. It is absolutely hideous, but it has the same sequins.

While I am sharing, let me show uou another ornament that is one of my favorites and one of my parents' least favorite. Every year without fail my brother and I would use it to be as obnoxious as possible until we were threatened enough to give up...or until our parents hung it high enough on the tree that we couldn't reach it. 

It is an actual horn and it works quite well. Of course it was one of the first ornaments I pulled out to place on the tree and I couldn't quite resist the urge to blow it until mom gave me a look that said enough. What can I say? I may have grown up, but a tradition, no matter how annoying, is still a tradition. I hope it lives on to the next generation. Mom said she was going to give it to my kids so they could annoy me just as much as I have used it to annoy her for the past two decades.

Stomach Aches

The past few days have left my head confused and my stomach troubled in the same manner that caused me to earn a B- in my high school calculus class--which by the way ruined my straight A streak. Concentrating on my finals has been a constant struggle over the urge to dwell on the thoughts churning violently in my stomach. Today, I am at peace, the storm is over, and in a more real sense nothing has actually changed. Regardless of the steady outside, the winter time in which things slow down, hide, and die, I have experienced the growth and refreshment of Spring. Tuesday night, although unbelievably painful, has been the catalyst for this growth and calm that I am now experiencing. I see more clearly the future I want, the things and the people whom ought to surround me. I understand myself and what happened more fully and peacefully.

I couldn't wait

Lately I have been wanting to blog, but didn't feel like Year Twenty was the right place because I had given up on that project. So I'm starting another one. 2012-2013. I'm not promising frequent updates, but I will keep Caitlin in the loop of my life.

Anyways, I realized something last night about myself--I hold hands with people as a way of transferring something. Most of the time, well for the past 6-7months, I have been holding hands to transfer strength. Either I need support for a challenge or emotional situation so I grab someone's hand (that is why I has holding Ryan's hand for a good twenty minutes the other night) or I am holding someone's hand to give them strength and support.

Strange?