big and happy
december 28th, 2000

Good morning, everyone. Technically, it's afternoon, about half-past-twelve, 
no matter what Diaryland says. But I've only been up and awake and about for a 
couple of hours, so it's still morning to me, in my relative mindset, in the 
way I look at the world, through my own personal multi-colored glasses.

I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning conversing with an old friend - 
Angie, the girl-next-door, my oldest friend, the one who has recently joined 
the Navy. Angie was always one of those people I never really felt as if I 
could talk to, about anything - I felt as if our lives had forked in entirely 
different directions long ago and we could never find common ground to discuss 
anything and she would, for some reason, judge everything I had to say to her, 
and everything that had happened to me. Unfounded, all of it. Our lives *have* 
gone in entirely separate directions, but somehow that only gives us all the 
more to talk about. We find a common ground in our differences. Besides, we're 
women. All women can find a common ground about *something*.

It felt good. It felt good to sit in the floor and laugh and giggle and 
explain to each other all of the things we had missed in the years we had been 
estranged from each other. The story of two women who were caught in the 
whirlwind of life and found their separate anchors that finally cemented them 
to the ground.

I feel good. Christmas was good. Christmas is always good, no matter how 
hectic it gets, no matter how frustrating some of the moments can be. Hours 
with me searching the sky for some sign of Santa Claus, because I'm still a 
believer, and I suppose I always will be. And Santa did visit me, in many 
small ways, all throughout this holiday season. Enough for my faith in the 
universe to be renewed. And it's a good feeling, to have faith.

We didn't have a tree at my mother's house when we went to visit her, so my 
brother and myself drug out the tinsel and the lights and the ornaments and 
wrapped the decorations around the banisters, hung ornaments on the staircases 
and from the light fixtures, and turned her entire apartment into a Christmas 
tree. It was a lot of fun. We returned home for the weekend, and Mum and I 
made Christmas cookies, and chased everyone around with icing on my hands, and 
it was good. It's those little things that really mean the world.

My daughter was sick yesterday, however, and it was a very sad thing. She's 
never really been sick before, in that running-a-fever, laying around and not 
wanting to do anything sort-of-way. It was a very sad thing to watch. She 
seems to be feeling a lot better today, however. Playing with her new toys and 
jabbering away. Eating a big, healthy breakfast. Things like that.

That isn't nearly everything, but it's enough. I am big, and happy.