Unexpected Emotions

I thought I had successfully navigated making it through Christmas in one piece, emotionally speaking. So imagine my surprise on the eve of my vacation finding myself really down. I can't believe it. I was at the gym when it hit me like a door in the face so I jumped on the treadmill where all my really good, insightful thinking occurs. About 15 minutes later, I realized why I am feeling so down. I know, I really should be better at this "figuring my emotions out" by this stage in life but I'm not and it takes so work to drill down to the source.

Anyways, here it is: this is the first time since 2001 that I spent this week between Christmas and New Year's not hibernating somewhere with V. Even last year, when he missed Christmas, we still had our hibernation to look forward to. So it's another one of those firsts that I could have done without. Here I thought I was circumventing this by making sure I wasn't sitting at home on New Year's and while a scenery change and change of place will be quite nice before starting off the new year, it's not the same. Not even a little. This week was always for us (V. and I) to relax, to relish in unstructured days, afternoons, and evenings. Before I. was born, it was the highlight of our year to just cut lose and act like irresponsible human beings rather than the stressed, responsibility-laden professionals that we had to be all year long.

I remember one year, after a particularly horrible year, all we could hear on that winding, 2 lane road up the mountain to Idyllwild were the cacophony of clankings going on in the trunk of the various bottles of liquor as they swayed against one another. Every time they clanked, it would just set us off laughing all over again. Needless to say, after that 4 or 5 days, there wasn't much clanking on the way back down the mountain. I.'s second year up, it started snowing so hard that we barely made it into Idyllwild but couldn't get any farther where our cabin was. We had to park and I was running around town in my sneakers trying to find someplace that had a vacancy for us for that night. Very stressful at the time, but a funny memory looking back. I. was not even 2 months when she went up for her first visit and the pictures and video I have from that visit is especially sweet. Us and our new little family, hibernating together in the cabin. So many good memories....

I am looking forward to our vacation but part of me is just really sad about it. I'm already missing the cat's company at night - how pathetic is that?! Once we get out there, I'm going to concentrate on enjoying it for what it is - it's not a replacement of our hibernation week in Idyllwild, it just can't be without V. It is a change of pace and scenery for I. and I and a reward to me for making it to the last day of the year still standing and pretty much intact. That is definitely something to celebrate. And hopefully we all can hibernate together in the next few months.