Pauses

(Finally, a snow covered Central Park for me and Craig in 2009!)

Obviously I became distracted in the midst of the Paris narrative and never completed it. I will, I hope to, at least, sometime soon. For now, I'm propped relaxed in the warmth of our apartment in our new neighborhood watching new snow fall with no sounds except the French neighbor chatting in the hallway (appropriate that our neighbor is French, right?) It's now 2010, and we're home safely from an extended visit back in the Midwest, wherein we ate quite well, hugged lots of family, friends and adorable rug rats (I miss them all the time, all of them), exchanged gifts, drove around way, way too much for my taste (I dared not try my luck behind the wheel again, despite Craig's teasing) and ran ourselves weary. Our flights were quite successful even in the midst of Holiday chaos - LaGuardia to Midway Christmas Eve, Midway to Indianapolis the Monday following Christmas, and yesterday, Indianapolis back to LaGuardia, all with little flight delay. Craig headed out to Best Buy armed with gift cards as well as with cash from my parents - it's new receiver time, what with the purchase of the Play Station 3 which does not compute with his old receiver to deliver surround sound. I'm soaking up the silence as long as I've got it.* So how do I catch up on so many hours and days worth of quality time spent at home? And where do I begin to detail my emergence from a decade of ups, downs, ins, outs, pros, cons and more laughter and tears than I can begin to recall? I'm blessed that 2000 thru 2009 showered me with masses of travel, education, love, hope, health, energy, and wisdom powdered with fears, lows and nightmares. Times are radically different today than they were when I timidly crept from Bloomington, Indiana as a graduate with no idea of what would come. Technology is brilliant. Communication with others both far and near is lazy, but convenient and admirable all at once. Me? I'm changed, very much so. I'm stronger, smarter, more in tune to myself and yet damaged beyond repair in many ways, as well. I suppose age will do that. I've reached bliss, and I've battled abysmal. I've wavered somewhere in between often, as well, yielding very little creative productivity. The 2010 plan is to change that. I've signed up to take 2 Graphic Design courses at Parsons, rather, 1 Color Theory course and 1 Graphic Design course. I intend to achieve a Certificate from Parsons, build a portfolio, seek possible free lance work and dance my creative soul back into the visual realm. My coursework begins in early February, consisting of a Tuesday evening class and a Saturday afternoon class. I have this laptop, now. I have Photoshop (thanks again and again, JD.) I attended a free Photoshop seminar a few weeks ago which reminded me that visual art software programs tackle beauty from so many intuitive angles and I can't wait to become a part of that again. I feel that however miniscule I may seem to myself, at times, there are abilities that I possess that I should be indebted to delivering to others, because others deliver theirs to me. I take and take, and yet what do I give? To this decade, this next one that I get to experience, I want to offer my talents. I want to approach living healthfully. I want to better nurture Craig now that our last decade together (much of it, anyway) has taught me how. Life is only breaths in length. Time fades the edges of experiences, while hosting space for new memories to be built. There are parts of me long lost to the last 10 years: poetry, namely one of them. Journaling my soul in pen, another. Giving my parents more love because they deserve it, another. And yet, as I enter a new 10 year time span, one which will hopefully find me preparing for a child, at some point down the line, I am equipped with the ability to restore what I feel is lost. Someday, I may have the chance to lean down and whisper to a child, You can. Live. Absorb. Observe. We only get a handful of decades to do this.

In an effort to recap a few things from our week and a half at home (home being the general region of the Midwest where all of our loved ones live), I will bullet point highlights.

• Christmas Eve with Craig's family: Hannah, Lauren, Brady and Jake. Love those kids.
• Christmas breakfast: Kara and I prepared French toast, scrambled eggs and bacon. The two KB's gave Craig's mom a kitchen break! Next year we will go more gourmet, though.
• Christmas weekend: blankets of beautiful white snow in the Chicago area!
• Train into Chicago to meet up with Melissa, Sean and Kelly - fun!
• Met my new niece Sophia Josephine. She's the littlest baby I've ever seen. But she just sleeps and eats. Lucky girl does get 2 "ph"s in her name, though! That's fun. And they call her "Sophie Jo" which is quite cute.
• Built Lego Empire State Buildings with my nephews. James Austin is an amazing big brother to Landon. And James charmed the heck out of me, as always! I decided that first borns like Hannah and James have a special bond with their first born Auntie Kristin because first borns have to be badass to survive the cooing over the siblings that follow. :)
• Turkey dinner prepared by Alaina and my bro, with the help of my mom & dad.
• Seeing mom, dad, Bri, Alaina and the kids: priceless.
• Hanging out with Kara, Ben, Brady & Jake - always good!
• Seeing the Purdue crew - keeping Diana up too late one night (sorry, Di!), New Year's Eve party at Liz and John's, New Year's Day at the Ale House with Djay, Chris, Corey and Dustin, with a surprise pop-in by Doug (Djay and Dustin's dad) and Fiona (Dustin's wife).
• While not a highlight, it must not go unmentioned that we struggled through the movie Avatar, me, Craig, Corey & Brooke - there were several points during the film where Craig and I were all, Seriously? Seriously?? It was a terrible film. However I think I will go as that Avatar lady next Halloween so that I can make sweeping dramatic generalizations about trees and swamps and what not. Well, and wear a tail.

So now we're home. And I'm looking forward not as to just a single year, but as to 10 years, hoping that within 10 years I can make a difference in my own life and in others'. I want to survive 10 years more of whatever the Universe wishes to throw at me. I've got a blossoming sense of purpose. I want life to make more sense this next 10 years.

We'll see.

Sante, 2010.