Miss Independent

It's very hard sometimes. I've worked hard since I was a teenager. I was always an overachiever. Mix that in with a handful of wanderlust and you have my varied travels. I was always pretty independent and self sufficient. I don't need to be around people all the time. There are a handful of times when I want to be around them. However, I work in education, which I Iove, but isn't the most high paying of careers. My current job has me living in North Carolina. I get home as often as I can, but I'm trying to pay off my credit cards (almost there!!!), so there are some tough choices to be made sometimes about when I can travel. Most of the time I don't think about it. I have a full life here in Durham with work and church and friends. I plan on going back to school in the fall. Sometimes though, especially nights like Christmas Eve, when my heart aches a bit and I miss being there with my family. They are the most important thing to me and I miss not being back in North Providence. Christmas Eve has so many wonderful memories for me. Apricot cookies at Nana's, antipasto at Grandma and Grandpa's, me and my cousins in matching pajamas (there were only a handful of us way back then), SNOW, and I wish I could be back there where it all happened. I promised them that I would be home next year though. Three Christmases away in a row would be too much.

So tonight, rather than wallow, I am going to indulge in another tradition that my brother and I share: watching A Christmas Story over and over and over again. And there may be a mug of hot chocolate in there somewhere too.