It’s the first day of the new year, and it’s close to midnight. Normally I’d be done blogging by now, but I’ve spent all day absorbed in the puzzle my family’s been working on. It’s almost done. Also, I’ve been obsessing about how cold my feet are. If I didn’t know better, I’d say my legs were blue from the knees down. They’re that bad. Really, for someone my age, I should have better circulation. I hope I’m not dying. I can’t wait for winter to be over.

Fuck Jack Frost.

This last week, my sister, brother-in-law, and two nephews were here, the whole damn family piled on top of each other. They left this evening. Honestly, the week had its challenges. I mean, I had to share my bathroom with four other people. Also, my nephews are little fireballs, and they turned our house upside down. There are still stickers on the refrigerator and crayons in the carpet. Plus, they’re loud–they’re boys. They woke me up early–every–single–day. And whereas I absolutely adore them, would do anything for them, more than once I thought, Oh–my–god, your uncle needs a break.

I’m just being honest.

During the last moments of 2017, my sister and brother-in-law and I were working on the puzzle. Along with cooking meals, eating meals, and doing dishes, this puzzle-putting-together thing has really been the bulk of this last week. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed it, surprisingly enough. I mean, I’m usually not a puzzle person. But I guess there’s something about gathering around the kitchen table with your family in order to solve a problem. You don’t even have to be talking, so long as you’re with each other. Plus, there’s something about having my sister here, in the home we grew up in, watching her boys eat junk food by the fireplace where we used to lie and watch Saturday morning cartoons.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to that time. I look at my nephews, and I know their lives aren’t easy. I mean, they’re lives are easy, but childhood is a powerless time. You get told no a lot. That being said, it’s also the time when you can tie a towel around your neck and have magical powers, a time when you can stand on your uncle’s shoulders and touch the sky. This is what I wish I could go back to, the age I was when the world was full of possibility, the age I was before all the terrible things started happening, the age of innocence. Some days I’m so weary of being an adult, of being responsible. I want to touch the sky again. I get so tired of being the one standing firmly on the ground, no one’s shoulders to lift me up.

Before my sister and her family left today, they cleaned up my bathroom and packed their car while I worked on the puzzle. Then we all took pictures with her camera, and my brother-in-law loaded the boys in their backseat. Finally, my sister and I stood in the kitchen and hugged for what seemed like forever. I can’t tell you how much I think of her, what a good person, wife, and mother she is. Immediately I wanted them all back, messy bathroom, crayons in the carpet, and everything. Who’s going to wake me up in the morning? I thought. But just like that, they were gone, and I was sitting at the kitchen table again doing the puzzle–alone and wanting to cry.

This entire evening I’ve been a mess. At the same time my sister left, a lost dog showed up in our garage. Well, I petted him, and he stuck around. Then Dad felt sorry for him and brought him inside and fed him a meal. In the meantime, I posted a picture on Facebook, but since he didn’t have tags, we figured we’d have him for the night. Y’all, he was so friendly and well-behaved. He even had my mom smiling. This could be fun, I thought. When I sold most of my possessions just over a year ago, I had to find new homes for my two puppies, Jupiter and Juno, and my kitty cat, Mister. It was the right thing to do, but sometimes I hate the way it ended, the fact that I couldn’t continue to take care of them, the fact that I could barely take care of myself. Anyway, the lost dog felt like a shot at redemption, if only for a night. But wouldn’t you know it–the owner contacted me and said they live just a few blocks away.

So now the dog is gone too.

There’s a scene in one of my favorite movies, Scent of a Woman, in which Al Pacino sings the song, “Did you ever have the feeling that you wanted to go, but still have the feeling that you wanted to stay?” Life is complicated like this, full of opposite feelings. Half your life you want to be the adult in the room, but when you are, you want to be the kid again. You think you’re ready for a break from your family, but when you get it, you’d give anything to have them back. You know you need to let go, but you still want to hang on.  Maybe this is what growing up looks like, giving yourself space to feel two different things at once, like slipping your cold feet into a pair or warm socks, or standing firmly on the ground and reaching your arms toward the sky.