The snow fell in big fat flakes Friday night, and although the plan was to have everyone leave work at around 3, we ended up leaving around 5, which was fine by me. None of the snow really stuck, anyhow, and there was just chilly, slightly sleety rain for the whole evening and far into the night.

It was nice, though, to experience snow again, even this tiny bit of it, for the first time in well over a year. Oh, sure, I’d see brilliant white coatings of snow on the San Gabriels on the way into work in Pasadena when I still lived in SoCal, but it was too far, too postcard-y.

It was nice to see the air stirred, to see the very pattern swirled and changed, the snowflakes telling tales about the air currents. The flakes landed all over me, pretty and cold and delicate.

It was pleasant to get in the door at home and catch my reflection and see tiny beads of water in my hair.

That is winter, my friends. Cheeks pinked up by cold, tip of the nose, tips of the fingers. The detergent from your clothes, the shampoo from your hair, brought forth by the melting droplets.

There hasn’t been much in my head over the last few days that I want to write about. Well, scratch that – it’s more like the stuff that’s in my head hasn’t collated and coalesced into anything writeable. And, like you, I am a little tired of my life being at all these constant crossroads. I am glad to no longer feel intense frustration and grief over losing my job last year. I am still sad about my Dad, but that will always be what it is. The effect of his downward spiraling health on the world my family lives in has been altered, though, and that’s what I’ve got to live with and try to understand and try to blend into all the new, good things that have been happening.

It’s been really wonderful to be around Dave and Chad again, and although I don’t see Preston often (we catch a few seconds at work occasionally), and even though Nova’s over in Durham, there is a foundation here that feels as solid as it did when I left. I really like all my co workers, and I really like my apartment. I like the bugs I find, and I like writing them into the database. I like thinking about narratives, and I like looking back on my life as I unpack these boxes for the millionth time and put things in their places.

I get caught up very easily (too often, too quickly, too, too easily) in the habit of casting myself as the all-wrong villain, the one for whom all things are going wrong, all the time. It’s symptomatic, but it’s also something I am trying to get better at avoiding. I think I often feel guilty over having good things in my life when other things are so, so bad.

That’s pretty messed up, when you think about it. I have good things in my life right now because I worked hard for them, and I came at them in a very honest way. I spend a lot of time thinking about things, being thoughtful. I consider and I do my very best to be good to people when I am able.

It’s hard to catch myself being harsh over things in my life that don’t need harshness, just so that it’s all matchy-matchy with the stuff that really does suck. Who does that? Me, apparently.

I lay part of the blame in being in survival mode for so many years. I struck out on my own completely about 7 or 8 years ago, independent, solo, supporting myself, re-building. I was determined to make it, and I carried that jangly tension until it was smoothed into tempered steel, propping myself up against it when I was exhausted.

There’s good in my life, and I am trying my hardest to let those things be good all on their own.

This disjointed series of paragraphs brought to you by pad thai with chicken and that carton of eggnog in the fridge that’s calling to me this very minute.