Only on the Eves

From Christmas Eve to New Year's Eve. With lots of nothing in between (save the busyness and feasting of Christmas day, of course).

But since then it's been long stretches in our jammies, chocolate in hand and endless hours of Mad Men on the tube. We blew through all 13 episodes of the first season in three days.

Heaven, I tell you. Heaven.

If, of course, you don't count what's missing. Which I do, naturally. But I'm also paying close attention to what isn't, and enjoying all that very much.

As for 2009 knocking furiously on my front door, I just don't know. I'll answer it at midnight. But I'm wary of the new guest blustering in with such universal fanfare and promise. And so I have no expectations.

I have only a plea for a kinder year. For peace. For direction. For guidance.

And for happiness that I once feared would elude me forever, and which I have worked very hard to cut and paste back into my life in a patchwork of moments and memories. I've papered over some of the badness. Replaced some of the sorrow with quiet peace. And my plan is to keep on going. To keep adding and building.

The little house of my soul might, to some eyes, always look like it's in tatters; bits torn out, patches taped over top, small cracks letting the cold in now and then. But it's still standing. And this is what it looks like as I work at the job of repairing it piece by piece.

Eventually, I hope, turning it into a mosaic.

Because even things that are broken can be beautiful again.

They can.