7 days: the spoken christmas

There is no Christmas like a Californian Christmas. Every two years we return to Huntington Beach, the area where my mother was born and lived until she was 25. Now, the children sleep on couches and sleeping bags in the living room, we take the dog on long walks on the beach, we eat often without schedule but plentifully, we spend our evenings in the hot tub in the backyard.

I love seeing our family. It always feels like time-traveling- arriving down here and my cousins have jumped in growth but my brother and I appear the same.

I think forever more in my mind, there will be two phases of my Californian family in my mind. Before Uncle Paul's death, and after.

Suddenly I am old enough to pause to hear whispered conversations and aware enough to understand their significance. I suppose most children are ignorant about the reality in their family in some way or other, but realizing that makes it no less painful to suddenly be aware your family is not as perfect as you thought it was. Somehow, understanding this makes me feel like I, at the tender age of 20, have finally grown out of the kid's table and am sipping champagne with the adults. And I don't particularly like alcohol.

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I have been without routine since December 3rd.

I am ready for Semester at Sea. I feel like this will be the longest week of my life. My final preparations are falling into place.

I'm incomparably nervous.