Welcome back, folks. I hope you missed me (or at least the words I put up here), and I hope as well that your year-end was festive and full of enjoyment.
My end-of-year breaks are usually a grab bag of have-tos and must-dos mixed with a large amount of cocooning at home, trying to avoid both. For the past five years or so, they’ve also been bittersweet, tinged with grief and drama over the losses of family and friends.
The end of 2018, however, was a radical departure from that.
I actually socialized.
On purpose.
Voluntarily.
Yeah, I know. That’s crazy talk!
Yet it’s true. In a twelve-day period we had eight engagements, an unheard of ratio in my usually antisocial life. There were even some engagements we had to decline. As it was, we went to dinners, stopped by for cocktails, met friends at restaurants, watched movies, and spent Xmas Day with our new adopters, a sizable clan of four generations and a dog.
Happily, unlike in previous years, each meal, every gathering and occasion, was a joy. The year-end was, without a doubt, the most pleasant holiday season of my 21st century. Why? Mostly me. My attitude about such things has changed and, when I get to choose the folks with whom I spend time, the outcome is usually more pleasant. I only wish we could have seen some of our dear friends who live a bit farther afield. I’ll get better at that.
But as it is now, I am totally peopled up. Possibly for the rest of the year (probably not, but definitely for the rest of the month).
Now I am ready to hole up in my quiet, peaceful home, watch the cat chase her tail, listen to the clocks tick, smell the French onion soup simmering on the stove, toast my feet by the fire, and read my book or binge on an obscure British drama, all while the winter’s first storms rage outside my windows.
With the new year will come new habits. There are books to read, books to write, recipes to try, and adventures big and small waiting to be had.
Much changed in 2018, and in 2019 I shall be the beneficiary.
Onward.
k
Nice to see you here again. Happy New Year. Susan Rouchard.
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Nice to see you here again. Happy New Year. Susan Rouchard
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Thanks! And to you, as well!
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