I'm way overdue for an update to this journal. This past semester has been among the most insanely busy I've ever experienced. I can't say my life has been free of anything worth writing about, but a lot of it was such that I didn't yet have the words to describe it, nor the energy to seek them.

2008 has been quite a year. I fell in love, in circumstances I never could have guessed would happen, only to have my heart broken, in ways I probably should have guessed would happen. I've had several people tell me recently that they seem quite certain I'm going to find the person I am meant to be with (one told me that I'm too good a person, and that sooner or later someone is sure to "snacth me up"), but I find myself feeling it hard to see that happening. It may just be that I'm in a place right now where I can't see it, and that I'm still looking back and grieving what I've lost. But it makes me somewhat apprehensive to even ask what 2009 is going to bring.

The emotional roller-coaster that my personal life has been should probably have inspired at least a few poems, but I've not found the time nor the creative energy to write much of anything for months. I'm hoping that will change in the coming weeks and months. I miss writing, and I suspect it's an outlet that I need to have in my life.

For the moment, I'm taking a break from packing. In the morning, I will be leaving on a 10-hour drive to my parents' home in Indiana, as I do every year around this time. (I always think it's funny how my mother asks "if" I'm coming home for Christmas, as if they're really giving me a choice in the matter). I've got my clothes all ready to go, and most other "basic needs" packed away. I'm trying to decide which books, CDs and DVDs will go with me. I know I won't possibly get to all I'll take with me for the week or two I'm up there, but I never know which ones I'll want to have until I get there. Needless to say, I don't travel light...

I have very mixed feeling about going up there this year. I want to see my parents, and I know they'd be pretty upset if I didn't come (especially as my only other sibling will be with her in-laws in another state). At the same time, I've come to understand why the holidays are depressing for so many people. While I'll enjoy being with my family, I fear that I'm going to feel very alone this year. It probably doesn't help that I had hoped I would have someone special to share those moments with this year, and now I won't. I find myself wondering how many Decembers like this I will have ahead of me, and I'm afraid to know the answer... After things that happened around this time last year (basically I got my heart broken pretty resoundingly), I'm beginning to wonder if this will be a pattern, getting dumped just prior to Christmas...

Anyway, I'm sure that's more than enough whining for one journal entry... I will miss regular internet access (and especially access to dA) while I'm there, as my parents do not have a computer... I'll be able to get online from the library or from Kinko's, but either place my time will be limited, so I suspect my devwatch is going to be enormous by the time I get back.

I know that among anyone who may read this, there are those who celebrate various different holidays, and some may celebrate none at all. Whichever category you're in, I hope the coming days bring you blessings, and that you find increased peace, life, and creative energy in the coming year.

The opposite of war isn't peace; it's creation.
--Jonathan Larson, Rent