I guess Christmas *is* a time for reflection...

[mousme]

Spent an obscene amount of time at karine's Christmas party last night. Got to see many of my peeps, including joane and shenlo, whom I hadn't seen since they left in June. Six and a half months. Since I got my job, in fact.

Damn, it felt good to see them again. I had to be careful not to burst into tears on a few occasions (overwrought and stressed much, Phnee?), just out of sheer relief and giddiness and a feeling that all was well with my world.

I have wonderful friends. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I have incredible friends, who run the gamut between quiet and loud, shy and flamoboyantly extroverted, and who all have in common the fact that they are marvelously talented in their respective fields and not only keep me on my toes, but make me fucking glad to be alive.

I was waxing eloquent with fearsclave last Sunday when we were in Alexandria that one of my major fears is that the stories of my life are slipping me by. That's why I keep wishing I had a camera, among other things. Last night I kept wishing I had a camera, so I could take scads of pictures, and write up a long post and make sure that this moment in time was never lost.

It takes very little to keep me happy. Actually, what it takes to keep me happy is stories. Stories can be fiction, but the stories that make me happiest are about my friends. Good stories are best, but any record of what's happening in their lives is good.

There is a reason I collect books and movies (less so because they cost more money) and CD's and try to take photos and write about mundane things like how my day has gone.

There's a reason I get frustrated with myself when depression and/or lack of time hits and I don't write what happens. I never wrote about the Bigfoot game this summer.

I don't want to wake up one day when I'm forty, or fifty, or whatever, when someone's dipping their madeleine into their cup of tea, and realize that there's a flood of memories that I haven't really kept track of.

My mother, for all her many faults, did the right thing for about fifteen years of my life, which was to keep extensive photographic records of our life. We have about twenty-two photo albums of the first fifteen years of my life. Granted, she was kind of trigger-happy with the camera, but in her shoes I think I would have been as well. Life is there to get excited about.

I don't have time to stay home and feel sorry for myself, even if I do have to take a break every now and then to recharge my batteries. That, I've decided, is not the same thing, as long as I'm still doing something I enjoy.

I'm going to be twenty-six in twelve days, and while I used to (and admittedly, some part of me still does, but I try hard to ignore it) have existential crises about what I'd done with my life up until now, now I figure I'm going to try not to worry about what I'm doing with my life so much as how I'm living it. If I'm a good person by my own standards, and can still face myself in the mirror in the morning, then that will be more than enough.

More noodling later, when I don't have to run out and meet my mother.

Can we tell I love everyone this morning? :)

Merry Christmas!