I was just too busy to do the usual Christmas decorating to cheer ourselves up—well, it’s mostly to cheer me up. The kids don’t care. This is the third Christmas that we haven’t set up a tree because…cats. 🐈

This is the last Christmas that we will be spending here in this apartment. My neighbor, the quietest neighbor I have who lives next to my unit, will be leaving sooner than us. She will be pulling out their stuff on Saturday. Her daughter will be going abroad to work while she will be moving into her sister’s house in Kamias. They stayed here for 19 years. She said she would have stayed longer (because she liked the location) if it were not for my crusty landlady’s mismanagement of the units. Her apartment (D) is full of termites. She often complained to our landlady about the disrepair of her unit but the latter doesn’t listen. Meanwhile, I don’t take shit for an answer that’s why I get things done. I use my own resources to fix things and bill her later. Oftentimes, I just don’t bother billing her because she will just complain that I’m a very expensive renter. Yada, yada, yada. 🤬 That’s why until now the roof at my cooking area still leaks.

Some people shouldn’t be landlords.

My mom said the next family that will get this unit will be lucky because I improved the bathroom (and it is pretty, my mom said) and will be leaving a lot of better fixtures like the higher end faucets, a big bathroom exhaust fan, and the custom wooden counter in the cooking/laundry area. And I kept refreshing the white paint and the closet paint. The only damage I have to fix is the bedroom door knob that I destroyed when the cats were locked inside my room.

This has been home for four years now—five when we leave next year. It sheltered us during the most tumultuous time in our lives. It has broken me as well. I will be leaving the bad jujus behind when I shove the last piece of my stuff into the moving truck in May. I will have a sort of fresh start as I won’t have the bad memories that I still carry in this apartment.

Speaking of Christmas and bad memories, I usually look forward to this season because it meant two-week breaks and I can read a lot of books during my off-time. But since 2020, December also reminded me of the toughest moment in my life. And I was still dealing with shit until February this year. Good thing I was still under therapy at that time so I was able to bounce back faster than I did in August. December 2020 was just trash and all the expletives that you can throw at it.

Thank God for art. I may not be good at it but it has kept me sane.

So December is something I look forward to because of the long break and it’s also something that I dread because some bad taste in my mouth remains. I still get triggered. But it will be all right. I have many things to occupy me so I won’t be living in my head again.

Aside from improving my sketching skills, I am also busy with my house.

My contractor said this small cabinet is not the kitchen cabinet but this is something that will go under my TV. 🤔

Hopefully, I will be busy with my new house for an entire year so I won’t have room in my life to brood.

However, the problem with writers is that we think too much. We have this propensity to perform mental acrobatics because that’s what we do for a living. I know several writers who live in their caves/writing dens (like me) and rarely come out.

Hmm…I want a writing shack like that.