White
2003-12-12, 11:03 a.m.

Outside, the snow is falling, and friends are calling, "Yoo hoo!" It's lovely weather to say that I 'have The Flu'.

Actually, it's my stepdaughter that 'has The Flu', causing me to use up my only two sick days earned over the last six months at the wretched hell disguised as a warehouse in order to keep watch over her trembling, sickened form. Aren't I such a trooper?

Already, the last six months fade into memory and - eventually, I hope - obscurity. In my head I am burning pages of memories from the place, like burning pictures of someone that broke your heart in a fire pit on an empty beach. Scourging out the depression, the frustration, the sometimes anger, the feeling of being disconnected from my family. I don't think I truly understood how bad it had gotten until I sat down with my family for dinner last night, and it honestly felt odd, like I'd just recovered from a coma or come back from a long journey, to try and reestablish some normalcy in my life. It was the best dinner I'd had in a very, very long time.

My day yesterday was spent wrestling with the house, a house that had been free to roam wild and had gotten a bit feral on us. As if having weathered a storm, the house is now calm and ready to be part of the family again. Time to pick up the pieces and move on, all is forgiven.

A long way to go, though, and not much time-- the 6th Annual Holiday Potluck approaches fast. I now have to head out of here and to the store to pick up some things yet for the festivities. And it is oh, so very nice to have some time to do it.

I reckon that there are some angry people back there in that place I'm forgetting, I having abandoned them prematurely. But goddamnit, after the last year and a half of hell that I've gone through, I think I deserve two days off. H last night thought I was 'crazy', at least for me. I think she expected me to force myself back there and take my last day on the chin for the team, even though there was a perfectly good sick day there waiting for me to 'use it or lose it'. So I used it. And I'm trying hard as heck to not feel guilty about it. But I do, to some degree. I also, however, have some interest in scraping up some tiny amount of dignity and self-respect out of this muck-barrel of a situation. For a change. And in the grand scheme of things, this will matter not. If all goes well, many years from now, I won't even remember the name of the place. If all goes well.

I pray all goes well.

Meanwhile, a beautiful snow falls. Winter marks the end of a cycle, and the sparkle of promise that a new beginning will come in Spring. The purety of white makes all things new and beautiful.

Time to get my ass out shopping.

-- End Transmission --