As I woke up Sunday morning with the light streaming in through the windows, slowly rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, it occurred to me that it was awfully bright and would hopefully be a nice day. That’s when it hit me that something was very very wrong.

Light coming in through the windows. Sunlight. And my alarm was set for 5:30. I literally threw myself out of bed, grabbed my phone, looked at the time and went into panic mode. I had 20 minutes to get myself caffeinated, showered, dressed, packed, and get to my girlfriend’s house about seven miles away.

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On February 14, 1998, V-Day was born with a group of women performing “The Vagina Monologues” in NYC to raise awareness and money to stop the abuse of women and girls. $50 million dollars and ten years later, V-Day is celebrating V To the Tenth worldwide.

What is V-Day? From the mission page:

V-Day is an organized response against violence toward women.

V-Day is a vision: We see a world where women live safely and freely.

V-Day is a demand: Rape, incest, battery, genital mutilation and sexual slavery must end now.

V-Day is a spirit: We believe women should spend their lives creating and thriving rather than surviving or recovering from terrible atrocities.

V-Day is a catalyst: By raising money and consciousness, it will unify and strengthen existing anti-violence efforts. Triggering far-reaching awareness, it will lay the groundwork for new educational, protective, and legislative endeavors throughout the world.

V-Day is a process: We will work as long as it takes. We will not stop until the violence stops.

V-Day is a day. We proclaim Valentine’s Day as V-Day, to celebrate women and end the violence.

Being somewhat pagan, I do not tend to celebrate Christmas the way so many of my friends and family do. Solstice comes a few days before and the birth of a godchild from a religion that is bound and determined to clip my wings is not really my idea of a reason to celebrate. With that said, I still find myself in a very peculiar place this morning.

For the first time in the entirety of my life, which isn’t terribly long, but hey four decades and all, I am alone. Even with the typical juggling of holidays that comes with being a divorced parent, I have never truly been alone on this day. Usually, if it was the ex’s year for Christmas day, we’d have our celebration on Christmas eve. After we moved far away, and the kids began going back to Florida for the entire winter break, we’d have our celebration when they returned. And I and my partner would enjoy a quiet day of our own to celebrate.

I remember trying to explain this to someone last year, as to why the day itself seemed so important to me even though I wasn’t Christian. He couldn’t quite understand and answered my heart felt explanation of tradition and family with snark, “What the hell do you care about the birth of our lord and savior for?”

I don’t. Never did. Not even as a wee Catholic girl did I care. It was never who I was, nor will it ever be who I am.

But I do care about family, friends, connections, and the slow return of longer days and shorter nights. I often choose to celebrate Solstice on Christmas simply because it’s usually the day everyone has off, and it’s what I’ve been programmed for since childhood. On this day, you stay home with the ones you love, or go to the ones you love, and spend time together. You laugh, you share, you watch the faces of the children light up, and sometimes you even bicker. But you do it together.

Listening to the absolute stillness of my household this morning is almost deafening. There is no scrambling to see what’s under the tree. There are no tiny shreds of paper and ribbon cluttering up the floor. The oven is not beeping at me to check on dinner. There is simply nothing. No sound other than the echoing of the keyboard as I try to get a handle on my thoughts.

There is only me. Lost in my thoughts and feeling an overwhelming sense of missing. Missing my children, my family, my friends. Perhaps I even miss a different kind of love, but that’s never served me very well, so I shall not dwell on it.

Whatever you celebrate, for whatever reasons you celebrate, I hope that this Christmas is a wonderful day. I hope it is filled with noise and laughter and hugs. With good food, good company, and good connections. I hope that it is filled with love.

Blessed be.

So, I’m not cooking dinner this year, right? What with no one being here and all. Why go through all that trouble just for little ole me? I don’t eat that much, there’s not a lot of point.

So I’m heading to the grocery store soon to purchase a gazillion pounds of bacon. And that’s what I shall eat! All of it!

Damn that makes me giggle.

Blessed Solstice, my friends.

Merry we shall meet
Merry we shall part
And merry we shall meet again.

Blessed be.

Oh my goodness, I ate far too much. As usual, I cooked far too much. But, you know, that’s sort of what I do. I’ve learned to accept it, dammit!

It’s been a fantastic day. I’ve had a very good time with the kids. I’m mildly tweaked at the colds running around in my house, but I’m eating antiboitics like candy and refusing to let that funky little bacteria take hold of anything more than it already has. I refuse, I say!

I also learned something of interest today. It’s probably not a good idea to watch a rather graphic zombie movie (shut up, I like them!) right after stuffing yourself with food. *twitch* Just a little PSA from yours truly.

And I wonder why I have bad dreams sometimes?

Ha!

Zach arrived this afternoon and Drew is on his way now.  Drew is bringing the lovely Jen with him.  It’s going to be a full, noisy house for the next few days.  And I love every single minute of it!

Drew has already thrown down the gauntlet by poking fun at my Matrix obsession.  I had to remind him of the days when he used to play Magic the Gathering.  If he keeps it up, I may just have to show Jen the video of “Elvis Stupid” and Drew doing a little hoochie-coo dance.

Never mess with Virgos!  We remember everything!

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!  I hope you all have a warm and wonderful holiday filled with love and laughter.  I love you all very much and I am blessed to know you.

And if the Universe can see fit to give me Keanu’s home number, I’d be very thankful for that, too!  Matrix marathon tonight!  Hubba hubba!  Someone turn the fan on, it’s getting hot in here.

To my grandfathers, uncles, cousins, and friends…

I will always remember.  Thank you.

Go visit Sheamus’s blog to view a lovely veteran’s tribute video.

We had a Cinco de Mayo celebration at work today - complete with a Mariachi band currently roaming the hallways. No, I’m so totally not making that up. It’s cracking me up, hard to work with it, but it’s fun.

Lunch was from Baja Fresh. Yours truly made herself not one, but two fajitas. Plus two chicken taquitos. Plus chips and guacamole. Damn them for not providing margaritas too! Where’s my tequila bitchez?!

Now if you don’t mind, I need to unbutton my pants and burp. I’m stuffed! Maybe a little afternoon siesta.

I hope everyone had a splendid new year’s eve, with lot of laughter and good times.

Good times aplenty at Sabreland. Good friends, good food, and of course, good drinks!

And confetti. *mutter*