First days of January

I find that the first days of January are always miserable ones. I am not talking about January first (well, that depends on drinking quantities the night before) but about the days around January 6th. It's where you realise that life is indeed going to go on, and reality is waiting just around the corner, and that somehow everyone seemed to embrace it and are already talking Easter plans when you are still not sure how to set the alarm clock again. I found myself last night standing in front of the boy's wardrobe trying desperately to remember what Ron needs for football club. I was unsuccessful. Than again as it turns out, clubs starts next week.

The funny thing is, I actually waited for these days. As fun as Christmas was (and it was plenty fun) there is something comforting about the routine. I missed my quiet time when the boys are at school, I missed being able to walk freely around the house without fear of knocking down yet another Christmas ornament, I even missed eating reasonable quantities of normal food instead of what felt like an unending chocolate feast for the last two weeks.

Just one of the million meals over the past month (or two)

The Christmas holiday is so different to the rest of the year it's easy to forget what life really looks like. It is the only time a year that all of us are really "commitment free". I don't give the boys any school / extra work, there is no set schedule, they don't "have" to do anything, there is no electronics limit, Hidai isn't working and there are no emails or phone calls or meetings, my parents come over, and I am completely cut off from anything blog or social media related. This, by no means, resembles any other holiday or term-time in our house. And though by the end of it you really want to go back to real life, actually remembering what those life looks like has been somewhat difficult for everyone. It started on Saturday, after my parents left. We organised the house back to "no visitors" mode (only 6 loads of washing and 4 hours of work) and closed down Christmas. Taking down the tree, lights and various decorations took about 5 hours, and after wondering about a hundred times how we are going to fit all of it into 2 boxes (because every year there are a few new things to fit in with the old things), we looked around the house and suddenly it looked too big, too white, too exposed. I couldn't sleep that night because our living-room window was suddenly way too big and of course a burglar could easily open it and come in. So what if the only difference is the strip of lights we hung on it for Christmas?

Christmas all closed down

It continued with stepping on the scales. I am weight obsessive, like most people who lost a lot of weight I am living in fear I will one day wake up and realise I gained it back over night. Well, it took more than a night, but on Sunday when I stepped back on the scale after giving myself December off, I realised that you can't really eat all that I've eaten this past month (or two, let's be honest here) and do no exercise at all and not gain some (a lot of) weight. To make you understand the amounts of food I've managed to consume, it took me about three days of not eating anything but salads to even start feeling hungry. Sunday was the day I threw away all the chocolate from the house. It was adjoined by the last of the biscuits, cakes, and minced pies. There is nothing more depressing than looking ahead and seeing an endless desert of bare salads and treadmill runs. No deserts though.
It ended with rain. I don't really mind the cold, I manage the grey better than I ever expected, the wind don't bother me (Yon and I love to "fly") and I love snow. But rain? Rain I hate. As Yon put it yesterday, while we battled the rain and tried not to be late to school on the first day - "I don't like this rain-time". It has not stopped raining. Or at least it seems like it, because it's been pouring down every time I've had to leave the house. Might have been some grey in between (as if that helps. It's just the universe's way of laughing at me).

Managed to find one nano-second of no rain to take a photo on the way back from school

Today is the second day of normality. I still don't feel normal. The boys have gone back to routine happily and quickly - bedtime, eating habits (no, you can't have four chocolates as desert and a piece of cake as snack time), school, reading time - all restored within 24 hours as if they've never been on holiday. Ron was disappointed there was no homework yesterday. Hidai went back to work yesterday also, and seems to have dived right in. It just leaves me, not knowing where to start from. Everywhere I look there are people whose year has started with confidence and a smooth ride. I see people who did not discover they are still yet to order the 2012 (!) photo albums and completely forgot about making 2013 ones, people who did not lose all their readers over the holiday period, people who remember if they already done their taxes for this year.
Everywhere I turn there are people who did not lose their English over the holiday, who have so much to write about, who seems to have it all organised and their road is laid down in front of them to step on firmly and securely.

Trying to switch computers

Not so for me. I find the first days of January are not the easiest days for me. They are the days in which reality comes back with a bang, where you discover that taking time off doesn't really solve anything and everything you left behind to go on holiday didn't really go anywhere. If I felt lost before the holidays, why should I expect it to be any different after?
Then again, Hidai did surprise me with a new mac on Friday and the rain has finally stopped and the sun is actually really marvelously shining outside for the first time in days.