Holiday Roller Coaster

Hello there, it's been a while.  I hope everyone had a great holiday break.  I'm way, way behind on reading/commenting blogs, apologies. This is my first day back to "normal routine" in about two weeks, it's been kind of a long haul.  I think I did pretty well with food over the break--which involved being at both of Match's parents houses, my family's house, and then back at my house with M. for a week.  Eating didn't go ideally all the time, but decently enough to act (mostly) human and not lose weight.

It was sort of a roller coaster of a holiday, honestly. My brother (age 18) was dumped by his girlfriend right before Christmas and was an emotional mess most of the holiday--and has the personality that means that if he's unhappy, he makes sure everyone else is unhappy.  My mom is under a lot of school/job stress and had a meltdown on all us "kids" on Christmas Eve, which freaked me out because she is my best friend in the world and the incident resulted in both of us in tears for a big chunk of the evening.  And my dad automatically takes her side even when he doesn't understand why she's mad, which is frustrating and sweet at the same time. That was the family stuff.  Aside from those things, though, it was a great Christmas.  Everyone made up and cheered up, and we had a horde of people over for Christmas dinner and all of that went smoothly.

Match and I got into an awful fight on the phone while we were both on 8 hour drives (from different directions) to meet at his mom's house, which was sort of a low point, with much sobbing and snotting and second guessing.  We've both been under enormous stress this semester and I think it really took a toll on "Us". There were some other tense moments, especially when we first got back to my place after Christmas and were sorting ourselves out.  It was the first time he's ever really lost his temper with me for stressing about food stuff. That hurt, in part because I was just as frustrated with myself as he was with me.

But we got ourselves sorted out the second day or so and had a strong visit the rest of the week. It turned out to be extremely relaxing. I think when he left this morning it was the hardest either of us have cried on any of these partings.  And I think that it was partly anxiety on both of our parts about how well we'll hold it together during the upcoming semester.   It's just hard to judge how things are going when you know there are so many external pressures at play.  How do you know how to weigh whether you're getting less happy over time if you are inevitably feeling more emotionally intertwined over that time, for better or worse, just as part of being together? Does that make any sense at all?  We'll see what happens I suppose, can't do much besides take it a day at a time, right?

Okay, so that was all the stressful stuff.  There was definitely a lot to love about the holidays this year, though.  I got to be with my family and bond more with Match's, the weather was absofuckinglutely beautiful, and I was successful in being a sufficient degree of non-crazy required to relax with the people that I love. I enjoyed Christmas Eve mass, a family tradition that I really value even though I'm not Catholic (or religious at all) anymore. I was undefeated in the traditional family Scrabble tournament, and Match and I kicked ass as a team at Trivial Pursuit. I found a new way to mess up the Christmas cookies (inevitably happens every year, I am NOT a chef) and we laughed about it and ate them anyway. One night I laid  in front of the fireplace talking to my teenage brothers so late into the night that all three of us fell asleep on the living room floor.

And Santa brought me an electric Snuggie.  You might judge me, but I, for one, shall not get hypothermia this winter.

I think back to previous holidays, when I was just one big walking stress hormone because of the messed up routines and mandatory family meals and EDness consuming my brain, and I both resent and pity that creature.  I never want to be that again.

I think that 2011 was a rough year in places, but a pretty durn good one in others.  I'd settle for that in 2012, but am going to try to proactive in making it even better.  It will definitely be a significant year, with me finishing my MS, moving to another part of the country, starting a PhD program somewhere, and likely starting research and learning a new language on a continent that I've never been to before.  Right now just finding out where that will be is the next milestone in sight.

I hope that everyone, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, had a great holiday break and is starting off 2012 with strength and hope.  I think my mantra for this year is going to be that every day you have the chance to make decisions that will affect many, many more days in the future--and that can be for better or worse, so it's important to consciously try to make it for the better.

Happy 2012, love y'all.