Paper Girl

Woke up at 6:15am with a faint headache and an uneasy tummy mostly due to too much red wine the night before and somewhat due to the crappy sleep of peri-menopause. About the last thing I wanted to do was get out of bed on this dark blustery cold winter morning and walk around with a newspaper bag (could have used a "paper bag" though) and deliver the thin news of the day. But I had promised my teenage son a sleep-in so me and my two university degrees are off to work, not the kind of work I had imagined years ago as a young excited student but a job nonetheless. Once out the door the maritime bite blew the crust out of my eyes and blew the fog out of my brain. I walked with my dog and my husband (who does the other part of the route) on light powder snow that in conjunction with the wind, pushed us around the corner. As we separated I acknowledged again how very precious he (the husband, not the dog!) is to me, how I notice the increasing number of grey hairs every time he gets a hair cut. As I walked over to the apartment building I was warmed by the Christmas lights shining through the blowing snow and I became okay with the fact that I was completely alone. I walked up and down the stairs, enjoying the tacky decorations and thinking about who lived behind those doors. Did they realize that I pay attention to a paper not picked up from the previous day and wonder if they're okay? Outside again I noticed some angel figures had blown over and briefly thought about righting them, then realized that they had their own guardians who would fix them, I don't have to fix everything myself.
Having completed the circle I'm walking back to my house I look for the footprints of me, Mike and Bailey but in the fifteen minutes or so they have almost been obliterated. I look again, there they are, so faint. Walking up my driveway I look at my cozy love filled house and I'm so grateful for this moment. I take one last look down the street - the Christmas lights so beautiful, swaying in the early morning light; it's no coincidence that we put lights out at this most dark time of year. There is always a light in the darkness, sometimes hidden from immediate sight, sometimes requiring a second or third look, sometimes requiring an early morning foray into the wilderness. I nod my head in thanks, go inside and go back to my warm inviting bed.