...tick tock, goes the clock...

3...

2...

1...

Happy New Year!

We stayed  home. 

All snuggled down in blankets and fuzzy socks, cocoa and sparkling cider and the remains of a holiday popcorn tin...just the dregs of white cheddar and butter, since someone ate all the caramel on the sly...

We flipped between cheesy holiday movies and episodes of House, never once tuning in to see the crowds or the performers or that glittery bauble poised to drop.

And when the night grew old and cold we turned in, snuffing out candles and gathering up dishes to discard in the sink...headed to bed with books.  

Yawns and stretches and "I'm not tired's", and lights out.  And a warm, purring fluff ball curled up across my legs.  I closed my eyes in the not-quite-dark of a moonlit room and let the slideshow play...the highlight reel of 2017 flickering by.  I let it wash over me, those moments of good and bad and everything in-between.  I let it burn its way down deep into memory, and settle in to the nooks and crannies.  I let it all become a part of me.  

The cat stirred, made anxious by my rigid concentration.  She sat up, stretching, turning round and padding my legs back into a suitable cushion. And I reached down, reassuring her with a chin scratch until her purrs filled up the darkness to the brim.   

I lay there, willing myself not to move, listening to the soft and steady purr.  I remembered the feelings of loss and loneliness, of joy and rage, of success and pride...and how each in its moment had felt so vivid and all-encompassing and crucial.  I thought of the wins, and the losses.  Of frigid cold mornings waiting for the schoolbus, and sticky summer afternoons laying about on the swing reading aloud in the thick air.  I thought of plans made and promises broken.  Of trips we'd taken, and harsh lessons I'd learned.  

And finally I, too, closed my eyes and drifted away with all those memories, whispering goodnight and goodbye to all those days and moments and memories.  

 And so it was that in our little ragamuffin home, not a creature was stirring when the old year ran out...

~Leanna