The Holidays
Thanksgiving morning, as Renee and I were leaving to pick up our dinner, on our door step I find exactly ten pennies on one step, lined up very neatly very deliberately left there, and on the next step down there is a key, duplicate car key freshly cut.
I think a Certain Someone was saying hello. :-)
We picked up a dinner from Safeway again, and it was quiet and enjoyable, turkey and a House marathon. :-)
I've had a few conversations with my mother and, so far anyway, its really looking like a Christmas trip home won't be happening this year. There is literally no more room at my mother's house, nothing at my father's and I haven't heard from Jean in a long time. If I was the sort of person that could crash on the couch it might not be a problem, but the sleep disorder doesn't exactly allow for that, a day or two maybe but not a week (and if I don't go home for about a week, the cost of the trip just isn't worth it, its about $250 to go up to Massachusetts around Christmas) not without suffering some serious health problems from it like I did last year. And the situation would be further complicated by the possibility of people being up with the baby in the living room late at night thus delaying sleep, plus my mother and brother in law will be working all week long and getting up at the ass crack of dawn, puttering around, turning on lights, and inevitably waking us up. And I'm not someone who can easily go back to sleep once I have been woken. So, we're looking at maybe a guaranteed four to five hours of sleep each night, for a week, and that's even assuming I can get to sleep as soon as I lie down and the odds are rarely good on that one (I'd go down with some sort of over the counter sleep aide, but that can only do so much).This is even less ideal than it was last year, and last year made me sick for about two weeks. No, just no.
And that kind of sucks. Yes, I did want to stop traveling home for the holidays because its such a fucking hassle and its way too gods damned expensive, but I would have liked to come at least this year. Because my sister had the baby and I'd like to see her at least once; because my mother's brother moved away thanks to the shitty economy and that was the only family member she had that would talk to her, so now she has no one to spend Christmas with; because Mary died earlier this year, and that was where I always went Christmas day after opening presents with the family since my uncle and I really do not like each other, and it would have been nice if I could be there for their first Christmas without her; because with any luck (crossing fingers and toes) I'll be living on the other side of the country come next year (come on now, Hermes, you want this, help out, pretty please!) and once that happens it might be several years before I come back this way again (more of a hassle, even more expensive, ugh). But the last two times I was up there did not go well for me health wise, and I'm just not willing to make myself ill to do it.
There is always a chance something could be worked out for later in the year, at a time when everyone is not looking to travel, when we've had a chance to plan things out a little better. For now, I'm just trying to impress upon my mother that, if I don't visit, its not because I don't want to but because its not a good idea. Its easier going than it might have been before, since my mother has kind of moved off the whole "the sleep problems are all in your head/because you're a lazy ass" thing, since I was able to put a name to it she has kind of had to accept that its actually real (finally). I'm sure she still expects me to come up with presents for people though. :-P
So this will be the first Christmas I don't spend with my family. And thus, the first chance I have to put my own spin on the holiday, do something a little more Pagan (I've not been able to do anything like that before, not while I'm traveling and my system is getting all fucked up). And won't that be exciting.
So I think I'll be trying to come up with some sort of a Yule celebration. Because this is, beyond any shadow of a doubt, Odin's season; I don't think you can have any sort of a budding relationship with him and ignore Yule. He was around very heavily last year (in a couple of intense, if fleeting, moments) but I was too wrapped up in beating myself up over not being good enough for Hermes to do much of anything with it; this year he's back, its already starting again, and I'm in a much better place mentally than I was last year, so best not to ignore it this time around.
So, I guess I have a little research project to get on, now don't I?
I think a Certain Someone was saying hello. :-)
We picked up a dinner from Safeway again, and it was quiet and enjoyable, turkey and a House marathon. :-)
I've had a few conversations with my mother and, so far anyway, its really looking like a Christmas trip home won't be happening this year. There is literally no more room at my mother's house, nothing at my father's and I haven't heard from Jean in a long time. If I was the sort of person that could crash on the couch it might not be a problem, but the sleep disorder doesn't exactly allow for that, a day or two maybe but not a week (and if I don't go home for about a week, the cost of the trip just isn't worth it, its about $250 to go up to Massachusetts around Christmas) not without suffering some serious health problems from it like I did last year. And the situation would be further complicated by the possibility of people being up with the baby in the living room late at night thus delaying sleep, plus my mother and brother in law will be working all week long and getting up at the ass crack of dawn, puttering around, turning on lights, and inevitably waking us up. And I'm not someone who can easily go back to sleep once I have been woken. So, we're looking at maybe a guaranteed four to five hours of sleep each night, for a week, and that's even assuming I can get to sleep as soon as I lie down and the odds are rarely good on that one (I'd go down with some sort of over the counter sleep aide, but that can only do so much).This is even less ideal than it was last year, and last year made me sick for about two weeks. No, just no.
And that kind of sucks. Yes, I did want to stop traveling home for the holidays because its such a fucking hassle and its way too gods damned expensive, but I would have liked to come at least this year. Because my sister had the baby and I'd like to see her at least once; because my mother's brother moved away thanks to the shitty economy and that was the only family member she had that would talk to her, so now she has no one to spend Christmas with; because Mary died earlier this year, and that was where I always went Christmas day after opening presents with the family since my uncle and I really do not like each other, and it would have been nice if I could be there for their first Christmas without her; because with any luck (crossing fingers and toes) I'll be living on the other side of the country come next year (come on now, Hermes, you want this, help out, pretty please!) and once that happens it might be several years before I come back this way again (more of a hassle, even more expensive, ugh). But the last two times I was up there did not go well for me health wise, and I'm just not willing to make myself ill to do it.
There is always a chance something could be worked out for later in the year, at a time when everyone is not looking to travel, when we've had a chance to plan things out a little better. For now, I'm just trying to impress upon my mother that, if I don't visit, its not because I don't want to but because its not a good idea. Its easier going than it might have been before, since my mother has kind of moved off the whole "the sleep problems are all in your head/because you're a lazy ass" thing, since I was able to put a name to it she has kind of had to accept that its actually real (finally). I'm sure she still expects me to come up with presents for people though. :-P
So this will be the first Christmas I don't spend with my family. And thus, the first chance I have to put my own spin on the holiday, do something a little more Pagan (I've not been able to do anything like that before, not while I'm traveling and my system is getting all fucked up). And won't that be exciting.
So I think I'll be trying to come up with some sort of a Yule celebration. Because this is, beyond any shadow of a doubt, Odin's season; I don't think you can have any sort of a budding relationship with him and ignore Yule. He was around very heavily last year (in a couple of intense, if fleeting, moments) but I was too wrapped up in beating myself up over not being good enough for Hermes to do much of anything with it; this year he's back, its already starting again, and I'm in a much better place mentally than I was last year, so best not to ignore it this time around.
So, I guess I have a little research project to get on, now don't I?