Christmas is a difficult time for many people, myself included. All this focus on family, the being on your best behaviour and the “look how successfully we’re wrapping up the year” makes me feel pretty exhausted. I feel much closer to many of my friends than to some of my blood relatives. As for the in laws, I’ve never been a mother-in-law’s dream, God knows why, and this time is no different. haha!Lamentations aside, Christmas is all about children and food. And this year´s food was yummy, but it was also new and so I didn’t get the “just like old times” feeling. And the children were lovely, but they were children- tired, grumpy and a bit sick. And it got me thinking again if I really want children and the idea kind of scares me half to death. I’m not sure if I’m afraid because I’m scared I might not manage the deed in the first place or if I’m afraid because children are time consuming and in need of more love than I might have to give.

Back home, my parents spent Christmas at home, just the two of them, watching TV in separate rooms, ’cause “the living-room was ice-cold” and because my father likes his news and my mother- her “telenovelas”. My brother, whom I don’t speak to for the moment, argued with his wife and ended up alone in my parents’ apartment in Bucharest, with a bad cold to nurture and no food in sight. I cried for him, to put it like that. But calling him would be stepping on my principles, so I didn’t. He’ll have to answer for his own actions, I guess.

Back in Oslo, things are all about the best schools, real estate prices, job interviews. I feel like I just landed from Mars. I’m tired and I haven’t baked enough and I’ve seen to little of my friends lately. Friends you cand talk to. Friends you can be blunt with. And funny. And uncensored. People I actually have something in common with. I don’t relate to anything they speak of at the table. I’m taking Sammy out for a walk instead of staring at the ceiling.

Happy New Year!

xxx, alina