:D
Guess what yours truly did this morning (read: around eleven a.m.) after waking up, dragging herself half-asleep to the kitchen and glancing to the window without glasses? Screamed and ran to the balcony to make sure my eyes didn't betray me and that there actually was snow on the ground. I'm sure I said the same thing last year but I just love winter!
Imagine a freezing winter night on a countryside. The sky is perfectly clear and you can see the stars and make out all the constellations that disappear amidst all the lights in the town. The moon is full, and you see it light coming to rest on fields of untouched snow. Surrounding the blue, gleaming veils of snow there is a dark forest, the outline of which is barely visible against the dark blue firmament. Perhaps somewhere from afar you hear a wolf's howl or an owl's hoot breaking the otherwise still night. You feel lonely, but content. It's a rare kind of happiness.
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:P
Another thing that has arrived is -as you have all undoubtedly noticed by now- is Christmas. It feels so ridiculous to queue in a store with advent calendars piled up next to the line. Why do they have to put all the Christmas stuff on display in mid-October? I just don't get it. Christmas comes as a surprise to everyone every single year and gathering chocolates, and lots of green and red things two months beforehand is not going to change that.
This Christmas is going to be odd. Until now, we've had a certain routine over the holidays: me and my sister (who have both moved out long ago) go and spend Christmas with the rest of the family, we clean the house, bake and cook, wonder if Father is going to be sober on 24th, and count minutes to the moment (eight p.m.) we are allowed to begin opening our presents, and the next day we go eat the Great Christmas Dinner and participate in the Great Family Gathering with pretty much every single relative. Now... the family has been divided in two after Father's suicide (although I'm beginning to understand why my grandmother choice to call Mother a murderer; days before, as she went there to gather her last things to move out for good, she had screamed at Father what a mockery of a man he was since he couldn't even kill himself...). On the other hand I have no intentions none whatsoever to forsake Father's parents (no matter how badly our world views contradict), and on the other hand I don't want to abandon Mother, either. But since the two are not in speaking terms and practically hate each others' guts... well, I don't have a driver's licence so I can't be at Mother's on 24th and then go to my grandparents' for the dinner the following day, especially since Mother has undoubtedly already promised her own mother that she and the children will go there for the 25th's dinner. Well, at least I turned down her proposition of going to Egypt for Christmas (out of the question!!! I want snow and The Snowman and the cemetery visits and the candles and the tree and the darkness for Christmas, goddamit!!!).
Some improvement, though: this year Mother at least asked me if I was going to come and stay at her place over the holidays. Until now she has already taken my presence for granted, as if I couldn't possibly have any other plans.
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:O
Oh, and by the way, a quote of something I heard at work today: "Mika ei tunne yhtä vahvasti kuin minä." I solemnly swear, I actually believed phrases like that were just clichés from over-sentimental American romantic comedies and only used to mock that particular genre, *n e v e r* to be used perfectly seriously in an actual conversation by a woman. I'm shocked.
