Hale Kilinahe: The Journal

November 29, 1999 THE HOLIDAYS ARE ALWAYS bittersweet for me. On one hand, I look forward to them every year; but on the other, once they're here, I feel them flying by so quickly. I try just to savor every moment from Halloween to New Year's Eve but the days just slip away. My mom always said that time goes by fast when you have children, and it seems so true now and that three-month period seems so fragile. Far more so than when I was a child. When it is finally over, I truly do feel a sense of loss and sadness. For many, many years, I got depressed on New Year's Eve and didn't feel like myself until February. These days, I just get moody and quiet, prompting Ryan to ask, "what's on your mind" more often than usual. I always found it hard to explain why I felt that way and still do, to a degree, so I just say, "nothing." I made my best effort to not get a Po costume for Katie this Halloween, but it was futile. I wanted to try something more conventional and less commercial. I was also wondering if she was outgrowing the Tubbies. But I'm glad we did get it, because she was just so happy. She might not have enjoyed her inaugural Halloween experience if we had stuffed her into, say, a cat costume. I'm sure it was a little confusing and strange for her. We trick-or-treated around Ala Moana center and then around my mother-in-law's neighborhood. She was up until much too late and scored lots of loot, most of which Ryan and me ate, including these wonderful Blow Pops that were touted on the label as "extra sour." The costume still might even fit next year, but I can't wait to see her as a cat. My mom has even offered to sew a black cat costume, complete with ears. Speaking of my mom, she and my dad went to Virginia over Thanksgiving to visit my brother and his wife. They got married in August, much to everyone's shock, and are having a baby sometime in March. So my folks met her for the first time last week. Her name is Diane, and she is apparently very nice. She's nagging my brother to finish his education, which is wonderful. If she succeeds, it will be a minor miracle, because although Mike is very smart, he is a procrastinator of the first order. He may very well be late to his own funeral. Our Thanksgiving was more subdued. We went to church in the morning and then to Ryan's dad's, where there was more food than I'd ever seen in my life, and everything was so wonderful. The requisite wiggly cranberry sauce was replaced by a thick, fruity bright red dip that actually made me appreciate cranberries for the first time in my life. My stepmother-in-law, Gayle, is my idol, because she is a very busy career person and also an amazing cook. I've been going to church every week for a while now. I was raised Catholic. As I may have mentioned before, I really hated going to church and rebelled in my teen years. I started going again last year and I'm rediscovering how important it is to me and how much I want to share it with Katie, if only until she gets a mind of her own and refuses to come with me. Ryan was not raised Christian but comes with me to mass on special occasions and every now and than just because. Every so often, when he joins me, there will be a scripture that doesn't even make sense to me, and naturally, he expects me to be able to explain it to him, but I'm baffled, too, and I wonder what I'm supposed to say. I'm supposed to be the god person here and I can't tell him what he needs to know. Am I supposed to have all the answers now? Can I just like to be there and not absorb every ounce of it? Will I ever? < BACK | TOP | NEXT >