Hearing Lucie's voice on Christmas Day was like a breath of fresh air. I'm not sure if it is the British accent or hearing about how the cats are doing on the raw food diet, but the conversation puts a huge smile on my face and lifts my mood considerably. Not that it isn't wonderful to be back in Philadelphia with my friends and family, but it's nice to reconnect with the people in Italy that made such an impact on me.
Philly is then hit the next day with a massive snowstorm that snarls the east coast and cancels the Philadelphia Eagles game my parents and I are supposed to attend (a present I gave my father for his birthday back in June). Most of my well laid plans for the trip home are shot as we hunker in and wait for the storm to pass. In the end we will have had nine inches of snow and as a result, I will only see two of my closest friends, Sweeney and Besters, once while I am home. While once is better than none, it's still not enough time to be with these people. There are just not enough hours in a day sometimes.
After wrapping up my time at home, I head back to Austin to tackle my least favorite holiday of the year - New Year's. New Year's Eve has always been cursed for me in one way or another, ever since I was a teenager. This year turns out to be one of the exceptions though, and surrounded by some of my closest friends we ring in the promise of a new start with a fine dinner and excellent music. I can't say it could have been much better.
Now comes the real test - getting back to the grind. All of the old routines start creeping in, the social calendar starts filling up and the amount of time to just sit and be slowly slips away as if you had nothing to do with the fact that you have now scheduled out your life for the next two months. So while I don't do new year's resolutions - what's the point, I never keep them - I will say that I'll be striving to push against the current that sweeps us up so easily. I don't want to say to myself "there's got to be more to life than this" anymore. If I could do that, I would be a happy camper.
