lost my journal in Various Endearments

Finals are nearly over. Guh. While I appreciate the necessity of studying library management and administration (on account of, you know, having to work with people to get the things you want), I’m ready to not feel drained at the end of every week. With the end of the semester comes the end of Jo though, and I’ll miss her desperately. I’d say I’ll miss the cast too, but it sounds like we’ll actually be seeing one another pretty frequently once Little Women ends. Hooray for Ferndale’s copious brunch places.

I need to find my journal. The agitation’s wrecking my ability to focus. I hate typing. That’s something I’ve learned: penning my nonsense does so much more to settle me. I take my time, I trim the excess noise. Loose ends are never begun in the first place. It’s easier to finish a physical entry. Typing, the opposite is true. There’s always more, and the more I type, the more frustrated I get with an inelegant jumble of increasingly ecstatic, pointless addendums. I’m not built for it. I’m not built for a lot of things. Watching Alex play Beth, I regret the way I played her. The timidity and puppyishness was endearing, but Alex’s solidity, tempered by all the ways in which she’s small, is beautiful to behold. I don’t know if my Jo could cry with another Beth.

I haven’t been able to get ahold of Lydia since Violet’s birth. It’s weighing on me. I’m sure she’s tired and busy balancing the newbie with Thisbe, but it feels wrong. Things will resettle, as they always do. But I worry. About the potential for postpartum depression and good old fashioned loneliness, about Matthew not having the wherewithal (or decency) to give Lydia a break, about Thisbe’s reaction to Violet, about whether or not Violet’s healthy, ad (near) infinitum.

I excessively use parentheticals. It doesn’t look this stupid on paper. Irritable.

Shifting to the positive (I will end with positivity, and I will end before this becomes anything but short), the house is speckled with flowers, littered with roses. They live on every windowsill. The beautiful, authoritative orchids from Katie punctuate the breakfast nook, lit by the snow. I love these winter days. Light rising from the snow, brighter than the dim gray clouds. I need to reread Turgenev. I still can’t write about weather. Hardly anyone can. You know me, though. Always trying to be an exception. Half a dozen candles. The kitchen smells of mellow vanilla, mulling spices, and my coffee; the living room is full of the various “amber” scented candles Maddy collected for me; “sweet blossoms” (an actual flower? a Yankee vaguery? too lazy to find out) in our room. My world is warm today.