Honey and Salt

It's freezing in here. The furnace heats both this level and the downstairs tenant. I have control over the thermostat, but he has a pellet stove so he is warm. He doesn't need or want the heat on because he has to share half the bill no matter what. So I have resorted to those rolling radiator heaters - it's a big house. I have two and one that is kind of broken (bit of a fire hazard, but don't tell anyone). I actually need about 5 to keep the place warm. Everything is turned off at night, because I can't afford a huge bill either.      Salt

Chutima, roommate, is coming the first of January. Great New Year's day treat. She is very nice, happy,  but not too happy. Quiet, but not too quiet. I'm looking forward to learning some Thai from her and she is hoping to improve her English with me, although she is very good at it now. It will be nice for me to have someone in the house. Someone coming home and say hello. She is looking forward to the same as in Thailand her family is very close. The all live in their own apartments in a building that her uncle owns. So she is used to always having someone to watch out for her, someone to check on whether or not she got home safely and ask her how she is. She doesn't understand why American families are not more like this. It's just normal in Thailand, she says. She has been living alone in a studio apartment so I know she is glad to have someone to do that for her a little bit.                                                                                       Honey

Me? I'm having a bit of a hard time. I'm looking forward to having her here, but I'm also a little nervous that I am going to have to try so hard to not appear stressed or depressed or idle. These are things she's not used to and I can tell already that they would be disconcerting to her. Her life is not perfect, but she is a very level person - no ups and downs.  She is also very used to the heat and humidity of her home and keeps asking me what winter is going to be like. I try to gently let her know but I can tell she doesn't get it, so the heat is going to be a problem. I told her she has to get a little heater for her room too - we'll see how that works.    Salt

The past few days have been crazy bad. It's not so much Christmas it's self - Liz and I have a great time together - lovely dinner, presents, laughs. It's the knowing, more than usual, that it's just the two of us. It's not that either one of us misses the family, they can't stand each other anyway and rarely see each other except for the artificially, strained cheer that they all must endure for one day. It's just the difference-ness of it all. We don't want to be different. When I look at the recent blog posts and Facebook posts, I get a feeling of emptiness. I feel flat. I don't necessarily want to cry, but it's like that kid looking into the shop window and wishing. There's a present at home and it's good to have a present, but it never turns out to be what's in the shop window.    Salt

I've also been having a very hard time with the fact that my sister just bought a house not very far from here. It's nice, she paid cash, she brought me pictures, she is very happy. She wants me to come over and help her decorate. But she doesn't grasp how very, very difficult that would be for me - nor understand that I won't be coming.  There is a Chinese saying that if you want life to go easy on you, you must accept defeat. I think there is some wisdom in that. They are never going to help me find a way to have a home that I don't have to feel can be taken from me at any moment or to not worry about the "future". We're getting old and we know there will be "taking care" and that it could be, will be, more expensive than any of us thought, especially with the crazy direction we are headed in. But somehow saying that I have been defeated makes me feel lighter. So what if you didn't win the battle, you fought a good fight, it's something to be proud of. You no longer need to be a warrior. Fighting is not necessary. You can rest now.  There is still life left to be lived.         Honey and Salt

I'll be glad to see this year end. It has been a tough one. Well, more than one. I got sick last July, not this one, the one before - there was an ambulance involved. Then it got so bad that by March I had to have an operation on my sinuses and my nose. Then the diagnosis of breast cancer and another operation and then another, there is a secondary op. to check lymph nodes, then treatment. (the money, the bills...omg) And just as I got the diagnosis, that blog thing of loosing a friend because she thought that I had done something I had not - no chance of healing there.  So PTSD was raging at that point on so many levels. It took leaving here for 5 months just to get my feet back under me. I don't really know how I did it. I'm still not sure where I am and I am sure as hell not steady on them yet.  But I am pretty glad that I am back here. It feels good to be heard, to be a part of something.                                                                                         Salt and a little Honey

This next year is going to be better. I don't think I can survive another like this one. I have felt some pretty darn good love from a couple of people recently. And I don't have any fear that it won't continue. I'm doing more art, as you know, and I have a good feeling that some of it will get sold this coming year. I think I'm about cried out, so that frees up a lot of time. I think there might be a cat in my future, I need to take care of something besides my self. And it's nice for me to have someone to come home to, although they are fairly indifferent when you do. Still....
                                                                                              Honey

But right now it's hard. It's damn hard. I feel flat even as I'm writing. Tired.    Bitter Salt

The tree is up. It was my grandma's. Purchased in 1963, she wrote it on the box. There is one of those colored wheels to go with it, but....no. The adorable tree is funky enough. She actually got a full sized pink one a few years after this one. I remember everyone coming in and laughing at it. I can just imagine how she must have felt. I adored it. It really spoke to the princess in me. I remember she put her arm around my shoulder.                                          

I put up the little village that my mom always made (hers was way better than mine). How cute is that?  Here's to you mom.  Notice that Mary is a whole lot bigger than Joseph.....  The green is from my daughter's fish tank. I think it really dresses up the whole thing. Makes it look real. It is real.

                                                                                                          Honey