Delighted. Really.

Have I mentioned the upcoming family reunion yet? It's worthy of mention.

The good news is that my secret plan to shanghai my favorite cousins from the airport, and deliver them to the reunion location several hours later has been officialized by the committee in charge of officializing things.

The bad news is that in those several hours between airport and reunion location, I have now got to cris-cross a major city in search of passengers, find parking at the airport at rush hour on a Friday afternoon, drive a full car load of cousins and baggage to another town an hour or more away, in serious rush hour traffic, on a Friday, in order to celebrate another incoming family member's birthday with the WHOLE FRIGGEN CROWD at our usual celebratory restaurant. And then we drive to the reunion.

I hope they give us a private room at the restaurant. One with padded walls. We're going to be loud, crazy, totally disorganized, loud, and insanely hungry. All twenty or thirty of us. Just think-- my mom, and four of her siblings, and like seven mostly-adult female cousins who GREW UP IN THIS FAMILY TRADITION-- plus kids, boyfriends, husbands, and well, whoever else we accidentally sweep along in our rambunctious and way-too-friendly wake.

I'm sure I'll be keeping you posted on the reunion. OH, and did I mention that my mom's broken hand is healing okay? It is. Really.

Growing Up

Everybody is growing up. I had dinner with my West-Coast family tonight. TE looks and acts like a professional lawyer-- she's wonderful. She's barely a year older than I am, too, and no longer new to her profession. Her baby is fussy and cute and 5 months old. Her oldest daughter is already more mature than last time I saw her. And taller. She's going to out-grow her mother yet, I think, and I worry that maybe she's not getting the love and careful attention her needy and dramatic little soul needs sometimes. She sure likes to shop.

My parents are older, too. They squint and help each other remember things. It's been a long time since Uncle R has changed his own babies' diapers... and here he is, at it again with grandchild number four. I guess I'm growing up, too, in a way. Learning to navigate between my old fears and my new possibilities. Learning to take intelligent emotional risks, and learning to let my body rest when I am tired.

I even got a great fortune cookie after dinner tonight-- Use your abilities at this time to stay focused on your goal. You will succeed. I don't know who wrote it, but I sure did need to hear it. I have a picture of an abundant life-- my abundant life-- in my head. Sometimes I feel it's within easy reach, and sometimes it doesn't matter how far or how thin I stretch myself, my goals remain very far away. Funny to realize that how little adults really know and control in real life.

I guess that's a learning process, too. And I'm okay with that. I think I've come a long way in the last four years, and I'm proud of me. I just want a library job... and these days, I feel that it'd be nice to have one fairly close to home-- and in an academic library or vendor service. I'd like to be financially self-sufficient, and emotionally come from a place of strength. Right now, I'm just tired. So tired I'm actually emotionally numb, and my shoulder/neck is hurting in a way it hasn't for weeks now.

I know part of that is the way I've spent the last several days-- scrambling to pull an interview together, catching up on all my web-based commitments. There was a huge day of family and their friends, with hard news about an illness of someone dear to me in the midst of the festivities, and a concert on the lawn. My Saturday ended after midnight, and I was tired and raw from navigating it all. Excited about Sunday, but nervous, too. Dating seems to have much higher emotional risks than friending ever has.

Sunday was a very good day. Longer than I'd expected, I was on my feet for nearly seven hours straight, and having good conversation with a new friend. I think we're dating, but I'm not really sure. I hope that conversation will come as easily as all the other talk has so far... It was a real success to be relaxed and not let my fears about my own shigt intrude-- for a whole day of one-on-one time with someone whose opinion of me I really value. I can't pretend the shigt isn't there... but I can decide how I'm going to act when I recognize it. And maybe... maybe this guy with so many other amazingly great qualities will be great about my shigt, too. I'd like that.

I stayed up late again, trying to work things out in my head. Trying to separate old nasties from new realities. Trying to figure out what had actually happened, what I was told had happened, and what I want to have happen next. The first person I need to be clear and honest with is me, after all. So, exhausted again, I fell into bed after midnight on Sunday.

Monday itself has been a blur of running errands, finishing web responsibilities, making the long drive to family dinner (arriving 45 minutes early, only to find that nobody'd called for a reservation) and back home again... And I realize I will sleep tonight. I'm exhausted both in body and in mind. I need time to process all I've done and felt and thought and seen and heard. I have more errands to run, and breakfast with a very dear friend in the morning-- somewhere near 23rd. Somewhere. Then there's work to do, and I'd really like to sort and stash everything from that nasty lump of crap in the middle of my floor tomorrow. It's time.

Balancing my own needs and the responsibilities and desires I feel (including the desire to make everyone around me happy, too) is yet another aspect of growing up. One I'm still working to achieve in a healthy and balanced way. I'll get there... but it may take a while longer. I'm not all THAT grown up yet, and my birthday is coming. Time enough to figure things out when I'm 3o. Right?

...let's see... that gives me a whole three weeks to bumble around in the dark here... give or take.

About Joy

I've recently had reason to contemplate joy-- to think deeper than the next corny movie on my hit list, and ask myself what I am truly glad to have in my life. It's not a difficult answer.

The relationships. The good ones. Those people, places, and animals are the Joy of my life. It's very difficult to think about losing even one of them. I think that's why I've tried not to attend many funerals in my lifetime. I'd rather have my memories remain joyful. Not relegated to the past-- behind some horrid memory of black clothes and crying and lots of sniffing because NOBODY thinks to bring enough kleenex for the way your nose runs when you cry. I think life and the people in it are to be enjoyed.

So I decided that what I want to do right now is honor some of the joyful moments I've had in my life-- and thought to capture with a digital camera-- by posting random photos. I know not everyone wants their picture up here, and I know I'm not going to upload EVERY joyous moment I have on film... but I thought it would be something important that I could be happy to review later on-- a commemoration of Joy. (By the way, some of my favorite cousins have 'Joy' for their middle name. I love that about them!)

And since I cannot NOT figure out the formatting of the photos, they are in VERY random order. Sigh.

Merry, Merry!

This is my aunt's favorite phrase. We don't know why she says it, but we know what she means. Merry, Merry! It's the idea that we create our own happiness-- and she is wishing for lots of it in our lives.

What with the concern and confusion surrounding the gifts my parents gave my cousins (see "Say What?"), and figuring out transportation for those without cars... I was a bit stressed when the big West-Coast family Christmas finally happened this weekend.

The best part was actually the gift my cousin gave her sister. It was even better that I got to help give it. My cousin lives in a 300 sf apartment, and doesn't have a vehicle. The box was huge, difficult to grasp, and rather heavy. To top it all off, the contents were delicate. One full-size piano keyboard with weighted keys, and a music stand on top. My cousin is an all-or-nothing kind of person. She'd also run out of wrapping paper after wrapping up only one end of the box, and her sister was coming to visit. In the midst of my planning for the big extended family Christmas, I called my cousin to see if she wanted to ride with me to the big event. She did. She also needed a favor. Could I keep the piano until it was time? I could.

I had been to Costco recently, and along with three tiny indoor-outdoor snowmen who jiggle like jell-o and sing "Jingle Bells" to passers by in silly high-pitched voices, I'd bought a Costco-sized roll of Christmas wrapping paper. When I got the piano box home, I finished wrapping it with my bottomless roll of paper, put a grand gold ribbon around it, and topped the whole thing off with a little sticker saying the gift was from me to a family member who couldn't make it to Christmas this year.

A week later, when I came to pick them up and drive out to the beach for our big celebration, I had my story ready. "I had this great idea to put all the gifts for Teresa and her family in one box, and just leave it at your parents'-- sorry." My cousin laughed. Her sister nodded and got busy packing her winter break bags around the huge box in my car. I found out later she'd actually thought I was totally insane, and had worried that I might actually try and ship the box to Teresa. It would have cost nearly as much as the piano hidden inside.

When my cousin finally lugged the box over to her sister, after all the other gifts had been given and enjoyed, the rest of the family were all grinning like the Cheshire Cat. We all knew what the gift really was... The only person who didn't know had to ask us about five times if the box was really for her... and then she ripped through all that wrapping paper I'd used in about two seconds. She was so happy to see that shiny new keyboard, she started hyperventilating. What a lot of happiness that one gift created for so many people. Merry, Merry!
...I just hope Teresa isn't disappointed-- all I got her this year was a football.