Happy Holidays! Happy New Year!! Thank goodness for the New Year!! I think the latter sentiment sums up the gist of this Holiday letter's summary of 2009 for us, as does the adage: "fake it till you make it". :) We seem to have made it to 2010, in good health and with happiness that I hope the attached pictures will adequately convey. 2010 looks to have a lot of work ahead, but also shows a lot of promise to build on the best parts of the last year. The brightest parts of 2009, as tends to happen every year, originated with my children, who fight incessantly but are maturing quickly -- with any luck, the sibling rivalry will start to fade soon.
Daniel turned 13, was Bar Mitzvah'd, developed a distinctive teen persona (sigh), plays basketball, started a sports blog (Dan's Daily Sports, if you care to keep up with him in this way). He won't "friend" me on Facebook, but are becoming friends in real life, as much as we are your typical mother and teen son. Unfortunately, Dan does not like to be photographed so he is wildly under-represented in our albums. Here are some of the few I could snap of him...
Emma is in fifth grade - she turned 10 in October. She is coming into her own as an avid reader, writer, surfer and aggressive soccer player. Her news article about the melting of the glaciers made the front page in her writing workshop gazette, and she is looking forward to doing more creative writing next year, and I am looking forward to reading it all. She is, as she always has been, a bright and happy child - I'd love to bottle some of her energy to use myself. Some photos of Emma's life:
Emma in Maze, Emma playing soccer, Emma's Bday Cake, Emma bunny ears, Emma Surfing, Emma hanging out, mama & emma at bar mitzvah
We moved (yes, again) to Oakland (email me for my new physical address), mostly to save some costs but we found a great new neighborhood and home. Being in real estate, I did not escape the effects of the recession. Transactions were hard to come by in 2009, so I changed directions. Some would say I started to do what comes more naturally to me and started to litigate. I am learning quickly, am good at it and like it. Also, the time away from the grind of a lawyer's normal, non-recessionary schedule has been a blessing in disguise - I've had additional time to think and reflect on what I really want to do. I've decided nothing, but the value is in the time taken to consider things more. I am fortunate to have a long time friend who owns a firm that I've been associated with in different capacities for many years - I will officially start working as a Senior Attorney for the SSL Law Firm on January 1.
I did make a difficult decision to rent out my house in Placitas. After a flurry of trips to get the house in order and rented, I have been away from NM for the longest time since about 2004, though I managed to make a fall trip to see two of my oldest and best friends and my sister and nieces who were in Roswell. We great time in Artesia and Roswell. I hope to return many times this next year.
Since the last time I managed to eke out a holiday letter, much has changed -- including my personal life and relationships. I am happily in a relatively new relationship that feels like it *can* endure. My girlfriend is Susie, who is an amazing person with whom I share a lot in common - we laugh a lot and get along marvelously. She has a wonderful, cute and sweet boy, Max, almost 4, who is bringing a lot of joy, entertainment and renewed energy to my life as well as to Emma's and Daniel's. I think they want to adopt him and he seems to be growing to love them a great deal. We have all spent the winter holidays with Susie's family, and it's been an amazingly easy and happy experience. A huge benefit of a new relationship, and this one in particular, is all the new friends I have met. I can't wait for every new day with Susie.
We all, along with a great friend and her daughter, spent this Thanksgiving near Palm Springs, where my very loving and accepting mom and dad. They are in the process of moving there and we had a lot of fun at their home. They are, for those of you who know them, still going strong and in good spirits and health, managing their investments in Nicaragua and downsizing in California. I spent a couple of weeks with the kids in Nicaragua this summer, and the kids stayed on for a total of 5 weeks that was a fun, if mosquito ridden, adventure. My children and all their cousins (to which one baby girl was added this year, thanks to Pedro and Celina) all adore their "tito" and "tita", as do I. It's great to have such a wonderful "familia". It's starting to feel like my family is back, and i know 2010 will be a year of building it and making it stronger.
On a final personal- but political - note, the year started out tough and is ending tough in part because of the long lasting heartbreak of the 2008 election outcome in California on Proposition 8, which passed an anti-gay, anti-marriage law preventing the recognition and respect that our loving unions deserve. I love my country and have great difficulty accepting less than full and equal rights that I have as a lesbian/gay person. The last year has been, sadly, about coming to grips with the lessening hope that I ever will ever experience "full" citizenship again in my lifetime. I've adopted Pink's song, "So What" as my anthem as a defense mechanism. =) But, the fact is that I do care that, no matter what good I do or what I achieve, there are so many who profess to love and live in Christ's image and by his example, who may in reality say they love me, but who are disgusted and hate (or simply judge) me and other GLBT people for nothing more than how G*d made us. They would choose we be alone and lonely in our struggles on this earth, or in relationships that are lesser in the eyes of the law, rather than safe and secure with the partner that G*d sends us or that we simply manage to find.
If you are one of these people- and most who receive this letter are not- I urge you to really think about what you know about the Bible and your beliefs. Do you keep kosher, as the Bible commands? Are you sometimes a glutton? or jealous? or judgmental? would you like to live in a society that punishes you or actively discriminates against you for these things? Would you like to be seen as a threat to children because you are black or Hispanic or white or left handed or blue eyed? I'm so tired of the discussion, it's become hard to manage my temper around it, so I discuss less. But, for anyone that sees this my way, I hope you will take it up for me in 2010 and going forward, because we do need your help, and while many of the rights we seek are taken for granted by the majority of Americans, they are rights that, when denied, have heartbreaking consequences.
Anyway, we all, Daniel, Emma, Maria, Susie, Max, Bernie and Lola (the latter two being our cats) hope you had a very Merry Christmas, Channukah, Kwanzaa or whatever spiritual celebration you enjoy, and MOST of all, have a prosperous, happy, healthful 2010.
