the land of if only

Now that she's not here anymore, I miss cooking and baking with my mom. I miss being in her kitchen and feeling like it was my kitchen, too, that it was ours together, with the difference that she had decades of experience and knowledge to pass down to me. I miss learning from her and creating with her.

Now that he's not here anymore, I miss playing my guitar with my dad. I miss hearing him say, "Can I show you something?" and then taking my guitar from me to show me what 45 years of playing can do to my fingers. I miss hearing our guitars play together on Sunday mornings, and feeling proud that he taught me.

I think I can hear my neighbor snoring at night. I'm not sure, but there's a grinding sound that comes through the wall at regular intervals, and I know it's an older couple who lives next door, so I think it's a very likely possibility.

Which adds a nice bass line to the soprano schizophrenic cat that sits exactly below my window and meows, just meows, meows, until I open my window and it scampers off. The other night it growled for about 10 minutes. Just because. I don't know what the voices inside its head are telling it. And I don't know why it has to sit beneath my window while it has these conversations with itself.

I can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else
but in the end, the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself
                   - The Weepies

I think that last part is baloney, because I don't think I would be able to take many steps by myself. But it's true that wherever I am I seem to want to be somewhere else, only to look over my shoulder and wish I was back where I came from.

I don't want to do this anymore.

New Year's resolution (2 weeks late): I want to have eyes that look for the good things I have in my life, wherever I am. I want to recognize the blessings I have and give thanks for them. I want to not want so much.

"Only he who gives thanks for the little things receives the big things. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?" - Dietrich Bonhoeffer