Living Out Loud: January 15th Edition

• It's almost midnight, and I am drinking vodka.

• I am seriously contemplating divorce.

• I'm not sure those two aren't related.

• But then, I'm not sure that they are, either.

• I don't feel as bad or ashamed about any of this as I should.

• What I DO feel ashamed about: I've got a lot of reactionary instincts about all the terrorist things that have happened over the last two weeks. I know that outlawing Islam or bombing a region ISN'T the answer, but since I don't know what IS the answer, I don't speak up.

• So far, my main goal this month has been "don't have a nervous breakdown." So far, so good, especially considering the divorce thing, and the Really Big Event at the Library this month.

• At work this week, someone told me my desk looked like an episode of "Hoarders." I've never watched that show, but I'm pretty sure that's not a good thing.

• Deeply discounted Yankee candles and Hello Kitty aviator hats are the bomb-diggety.

As per usual, I had a ton of things that I wanted to blog about over the last month. Christmas, of course, and our attempts here at Casa de Cricket to celebrate. My favorite songs-books-memories of 2014. My goals for 2015. Quite a few more, too. And there's a lot I'd like to be blogging about, right now. But tonight, as I sip some tea and listen to my beloved "dirge music", I just want to take a moment and imagine a few things that maybe aren't as beyond my grasp as I once thought them to be.

• Icy cold winters, in which the denim of my always-too-tight jeans is inadequate protection against the frigid air. Worrying about the icy streets. Nights spent watching the streetlights reflecting against a cloudy sky as a winter storm approaches. February days spent wondering if the winter will ever end.
• The magic of the first warm day of the year, with the breeze still just a little too cool, but no matter, because the sun is shining and it's totally worth taking a stroll to see the first bits of green peeping into the land
•  The vivacity of spring when it really bursts forth in an intense, eyeball-ache-inducing variety of greens.
•  Hazy summer dusks, shrouded in an almost mystical golden light
•  The cloying humidity of a late-August night as a thunderstorm approaches, and the atmosphere becomes electrified, and a few fireflies silently glow, utterly indifferent to the potential havoc
•  The relief of autumn, and the reminder of balance in nature. The gathering of days, the piles of leaves, the ability to actually wear sweaters during sweater weather.
• A land filled with fields and forests and farmhouses and bungalows and miles upon miles of tract housing, and yes, a fair amount of urban blight
•   A place in which people don't assume it's totally fine and normal to bring their gosh-darned dogs to every restaurant, department store, and public building in the state.
• Living so much closer to my most favorite people in the world.

Nothing has changed in my life, externally, and nothing will change for a good long time yet. And there's the possibility that it won't ever change.

But internally, everything is shifting. And the most important change comes from within.