On the Road Again

Last night I came home reeking like a giant cigarette, my eyes bloodshot and watering, with a splitting pain in my temples. I felt like I had been at a bar all night, bathing myself in second hand smoke, only to find that despite driving with my windows down in the frigid cold, the smell had hardly dissipated when I got home. I was, for all intents and purposes, a giant walking ash tray.

And this is what I hate most about the holidays. Sitting nine full, like a tin can of sardines in a single room, with my back up against a blast of hot, hot air radiating from a wood stove behind me. Sitting there, until it feels like my skin might start oozing away from my body, dripping drop by drop down onto the hard slate floor, until it forms a puddle of what had previously been me in solid matter.

I counted the packs of cigarettes on the table. 2, 4, 6, 8 ... Maybe two packs for every one person sitting around the world's smallest table, in the world's smallest kitchen, with the world's biggest collection of ash trays to ever accommodate a single group of people. It was hard not to be impressed.

But it was even harder trying not to breathe for the 2 hours I was there doing my Christmas duty and making nice for the holidays.

Earlier in the afternoon, I had considered not going. Thinking that a nap sounded much better indeed than going to a home that used to be my home, that was no longer my home, but still housed someone I referred to as Dad, whenever our lives happened to intersect and meet. It was a tempting thought to forego the drive and stay curled up on my couch, reading the new book my Mother had given me for Christmas, while KC was gone for the afternoon with her Dad.

But I couldn't disappoint him. Not on Christmas.

And so I went. Managing to show up before Amy and her family made their own appearance, despite having timed myself precisely to their having left before me, so I could be the one to arrive after everyone else. It seems silly. But it makes me feel better, to make an entrance when I know there's going to be more familiar faces than strangers for me to meet.

Still he was happy to see me. How to explain the smile that lit up his face, when I walked through the door and said hello, knowing that he had probably already come to the conclusion that I was going to be a no show this year. Which all in all, made both the drive and the visit well worth the second shower I had to take last night just to scrub off the cigarette smell.

So I made it through the holidays, none too worse for wear, despite the fact that there's still one more thing I need to do ...

I hear there's some more presents with my name on them, just begging to be opened.