It’s 2014! Yes, I just noticed. My new year cycle is slightly different than most. As my birthday is just eight days into January, the week between December 31 and January 9 feels like bleary, suspended time. Days go by, yes. Work gets done if it must. But not until the final day of the holiday season trifecta of Christmas-New Year’s Eve-birthday do I feel mentally “in” the new year. I used to feel guilty about this, but I don’t anymore. It’s my cycle. It’s how I work. It really doesn’t matter that the world moves forward in time without me for one week.
The right goodbye at the right time
The same photo has been the wallpaper on my phone for years now. Gunshy in a bow tie was the obvious choice before he died last May, and it never even occurred to me to change it. Until yesterday. I might have gone on gazing on my departed little boy a hundred times a day indefinitely, but another baby boy showed up in my family this week, and everything in the world has changed. When my sister shared a photo of herself and her two-day-old son at home in front of the Christmas tree, my heart exploded, my brain fell out of my head, and all I wanted to do with the rest of my life is stare at that baby.
Ok, chaos. Fine.
There is a certain degree of chaos that I deal on a daily basis. If you’ve met our dog Lois, you know what I mean. But there’s also chaos involved with any type of freelancing, which varies from day to day, but is always around to some degree. Sure, being a freelancer frees you from the overbearing boss and demands for your presence that aren’t necessary, but those annoyances are replaced by others. And generally, chaos is the theme of most of them.
One day recently, I was yelling at Lois for licking the dishes in the dishwasher (which she always does, despite always being yelled at for it), and I thought, “Why isn’t Lois allowed to lick the dishes?”
f
Natalie Burg 