'Tis Done!

The working year, that is. Officially - though, suffering from an over-inflated sense of duty, I will be popping in to the office every day or so to check on anyone who might be panicking. And I'll be picking up work emails here at home to respond to... So much for Actual Holiday!

But nevertheless, I'm on leave. Tommorrow is a public holiday, and our offices closed at lunchtime. Yay!

Funny, I don't feel like it's holiday. Must have something to do with my last customers of the day being a p'd off Korean and an arrogant SAfrican. For reasons unknown to me, they say I've treated them badly - when in fact I've bent over backwards and gone out of my way to draw together the many strings of the many people they were trying to work through, and gather it into one place. Ah well, these things do happen. And dealing with it before leaving for the holiday is far better than being called in to deal with it while already on holiday! Unfortunately, from my office they went on to go upset another one. Snowball effect and all that.

But I'm trying. I'm hoping to shake the work year a bit better over the next few days, and start to wind down (or up, as I have considerable work to do on those Xmas prezzies yet - but it's fun work). We had lunch at the Spur, our fave family restaurant, courtesy of a bit of birthday money someone dropped off on my desk while I wasn't looking. And a random stop at the bookstore nearby yielded a new UK Country Living magazine for me and a PS2 one for my son. Not bad, and it's just the thing I need to be looking at to get me in a deliciously-goosebumpy holiday spirit. (Oh, how I long for a 400-year old stone cottage and garden filled with blooms!)

On the darker side of today is the fact that my mom is steadily worsening. She woke up only once today, and was not terribly coherent - though she says she loves us. Her time is rapidly drawing to an end, and then both she and my dad can rest. They come through a-week-away-from-36-years together with few regrets - and the regrets my dad mentioned are really nothing (he being destination-oriented, while mom was journey-oriented). They've had the most perfect marriage I've ever seen, complete soul-mates, married just out of college and never looking back. It's been a long road, this cancer, but it's nearly over. However, it means we may have a funeral to cope with very soon, as soon as dad can arrange to get out here with her cremated remains. That sucks - and forever after our festive season will be a time to remember a death in the family. She's lived a good life though, and lives on in her children and grandchildren, as well as the hearts of many.

In the meantime, life for us doesn't pause. We rush forth into each day's opportunities (doing our best to avoid over-crowded malls and irate road-hogs, keeping the stress levels as low as possible). Every moment is a chance for renewal, a do-over if the last moment has been less than stellar. Every day insists on dawning, wiping clean yesterday's slate and giving us a chance to get up and do more, do better, live more fully.

And in that spirit I choose to release the anger I left work with, the feeling of being unfairly treated. I breathe deep, let go and move onwards toward a deliciously-open holiday period where anything is possible.