I kept the key to my old NJ house on my key chain for eight years after I moved to Martha's Vineyard.
I've said it before: I'm not good with transitions.
Oh, I'm a big girl now. I manage. I just need a little time for internal processing.
There is artwork on various walls in my house that my kids made in school years ago. I like knowing it's there.
Since last June I've kept a decoration from Daughter #1's high school graduation party on the mantel. After she left for college I enjoyed looking at it even more. It reminded me of a safer past, when she was still living at home, secure under my watchful eye.
I finally banished it before she arrived for Thanksgiving. But only because I knew she would mock me.
2010 is upon us and every TV channel seems to be hosting a retrospective, looking back on this, the first decade of a still sparkling new millennium.
Is it really ten years since we partied "like it's 1999?" I still possess my very tacky and beloved 2000 glasses from that celebration. Can it already be time to ring in a new decade?
When your kids have one-and-a-half feet out the door and you're at this midpoint in life, some days every breath you take seems to be a transition of some sort. Emotionally. Mentally. Physically.
I'm trying to give myself a break. Requiring a few extra moments to ruminate before moving on isn't always a bad thing.
On the window sill above my kitchen sink is a small heart-shaped vase. In it are the very dried remains of the last few asters I snipped from my garden in October before the frost.
Their presence is a gesture, a tangible reminder of what, after a long gray winter, will inevitably return.
I may just keep them there until I cut my first bunch of daffodils. Or perhaps I'll toss them tomorrow.
But today, I like knowing they're there.
Enjoy your New Year's celebrations everyone! See you here in 2010.



