A lengthy collection of half-formed thoughts, more than tidbits, less than entries.
I have started and not finished at least four entries in the past couple of weeks. One was about traditions, prompted by a general feeling that mine (which I didn't even know I had) were pretty badly violated when I spent Thanksgiving in Wisconsin with etler's family. Not that the day wasn't nice... I knit an entire armwarmer, I enjoyed a lovely fire and yummy wine in good company and it was capped off with a nice meal. But it wasn't familiar and I wasn't quite prepared for it to be so not-familiar.
(Nor was I prepared to open a very messy set of traumatic memories... I didn't realize until after the fact that the only Thanksgivings I've spent in the midwest since leaving home for college revolved around my mother being very very sick, dying, or dead. I went home the Thanksgiving before she died because she was dying, and the Thanksgiving after because I didn't want my dad to be alone and around all of those memories. Plus we had this trip to New Zealand to plan...)
I started another entry about the Season of Greed in response to the natural prompt of Holiday Gift Guides in blogs that was basically a rant about how, in my opinion, all gifts need to be about the recipient and what that person will appreciate... not about the statement that a giver wishes to make. Experiences are great if the recipients feel they have too much stuff and want to declutter their lives. Decadent things that someone would never buy for himself but would love to own and happily use are great for the person who always needs a justification for having nice things and always feels guilty spending anything on themselves when they could give it away or spend it on someone else.
The third one was about Dickens and Can Can and Body Image and Femininity and Sexuality and Theatre and ... well, suffice it to say that it had a lot of topics that are all related in my inner musings and are a bit of a challenge to say something succinct about. Something about suits of clothes and how they contribute to defining character... how it's easier to notice and laugh at clever innuendo and outright bawdiness when I'm in the skin of a Tart because there's no guilt associated with it. It belongs to the character. It doesn't have to interact with my inner prude or my reserved Midwestern upbringing. There's more to it that maybe I'll get around to writing about when the Faire has ended for the year and I'm really decompressing. Right now, I'm really enjoying living it. Really Really enjoying it. Especially all of the crazy random stuff that goes on during Blowout.
Today, I'm thinking about love and relationships and how they work when one is by nature a Seeker and prone to dwelling on how to build and maintain the perfect, Ideal Relationship (which, of course, my wiser self knows doesn't exist). Many things have amazed me since finding etler (or, to be more precise, having him found for me and being prodded in his general direction, thank you threadwalker). I've been impressed by how easy things are most of the time, and how easy and comfortable most of the time doesn't mean that we never disagree or argue or hurt each other's feelings. We are both still learning how to communicate best with each other... and I, at least, am learning that while I can come to expect some of the things that blew me away a year ago, I still need to appreciate those things. It's been interesting to discover that committing myself fully to someone doesn't mean I won't be curious about or tempted by others. It just means the cost of acting on those temptations is too high to be worth it.
And, for the record, while I get grumpy sometimes because I want etler to surprise me (the beautiful thing about new relationships... almost all good things are surprises in one way or another. Then you get used to the person... and come to expect them and it gets harder...) and he's not actually very good at it, when he succeeds, it will still bowl me over. Like yesterday when he surprised me with some yarn that I'd been lusting after for a very great while. He knew the brand, and knew when to acquire it because I was stalking it over the Internet the same night that he bought it... and managed to pick out the first two colors that I'd really, really wanted. Without seeing them on a wishlist or any such thing. Sometimes I forget how well he really does see and know me. I want to chastise myself for forgetting... but then, if I never forgot, I am not sure I'd be so deeply appreciative when reminded.