Time since....

I have been alone in the house for the last few days. Remember all of my ranting about wanting to live alone so that I could have a schedule? Well, it's probably overrated. I haven't been sleeping downstairs. I have been sleeping on the air mattress in the living room. By morning it has deflated and I am basically lying on the floor but somehow it's better than going and sleeping in the basement where it feels more lonely at night. Yes, life is very empty without people.

As time goes by my mind keeps drifting back to moments little pieces of conversation that we had. I have been so caught up in this restlessness. Always asking what else I should be doing. Where I should go next. While you girls were here there was a settledness. I am Natalie Case. This is my past. These are my friends. This is my life. It's wonderful. I want to hang onto the somehow. I don't need to be more. Who I am. What I have. Is absolutely wonderful.

I read this in an article on the train on the way home (which by the way took two extra hours due to weather and getting caught behind a freight train!). ---- "Let's get caught up in something, some kind of celebration in spite of the darkness inside and out. Let's join in, raise a glass to this story we're writing. We lose the plot at times, but it's our story, the only one we get to write our names on.

And so it always begins with family. The people that raise us up, haunted by their own childhoods...."

So, maybe the plot seemed a little bit clearer while the two of you were here. Celebration was near, palpable. Those hours at night when the house is lonely, the air mattress I am sleeping on is slowly sinking to the floor and fantasy is what keeps me company the plot seems to fade a little. But it's still a part of it. It's still to be celebrated. Taken in. It's the present. It's the story. It's my story. I don't need another one.

I am well.

You both happen to be sleeping in the other room right now! How amazing!

I am looking forward to the day.

Ah, such sweet fellowship!

Out with 2007 and in with 2008.
What better people to spend the rest of the year with!