Money

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Prompt for December 6: Money: where did you spend your money this year? Did you save it instead? What, if anything, would you like to do differently with your finances in the coming year?

I bought a car.

A very silly little light blue Korean-made car with a manual transmission and an impractically pale interior. It looks suspiciously like an Easter egg.

I love it.

And my father didn't get to make this decision for me.

The day my sister and I spent in the local high school parking lot and surrounding neighborhood learning to drive TheEgg was priceless. If I damaged the clutch learning to drive it on all of these damned hills, well, then I'll replace the clutch.

And you know what? My father was wrong. Girls can drive a stick shift. I love mine so much I'll probably never buy an automatic again.

Six months later, I still love the pale blue color. It makes me happy. If I get a ticket because of the silly color, who cares? It is my car; I will pay my ticket and no one can say a damned word about it.

This car is like me: fun, dependable, a little frivolous, and smells of coffee and Burberry perfume.

Live for Moments

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Prompt for December 2:

Live for Moments: pick a vivid memory from this year- maybe one when you felt most alive; or when you felt most wounded, happiest, fulfilled. Tell us about it in the most vivid detail you can- sights, sounds, smells, feelings.

It was windy outside. The wind was crazy: whistling and whining and flinging things through the valley. I had struggled to keep my tiny EasterEgg on the road and was relieved to have made it to work safely.

I entered the building juggling my too-big purse and too-big Americano while trying to untangle my too-big sunglasses from my too-big hair. I could barely see through the red-blond cloud the wind had wrapped firmly around my face. My Americano had splashed over the lip of my cup and scalded an angry red blotch from the web of my hand past my wrist.

I set my coffee and my bag down on a counter and tried to shake it off- first the coffee on my arm, and then the I-blew-out-my-hair-with-a-cyclone look I was rocking.

My coworker, Tigerlilly, a particular favorite of mine, popped up out of nowhere. She grinned at me from underneath her inky black never-a-strand-out-of-place hair and said, "I'm glad you're here! I didn't know you would be in today!" I smiled at her as I tucked my sunglasses into my bag and gulped my coffee. "Your little brother just walked in, too!" she continued.

And, just like that, with a flash of her adult braces and a flip of her hair, I was devastated.

Every cliche about being metaphorically sucker punched happened in the next millisecond. My heart stopped. My breath stopped. Everything was quiet.

"What do you mean?" I forced the words out.

"You know, Lames. Your little brother." She was still smiling. A distant part of my brain realized she was making a joke about a coworker with whom I've become close friends.

I could see where the joke was coming from. He's a few years younger than me; we bicker like kids; we have silly inside jokes and nicknames.

I managed to hold on to my smile and say something flip in response- I have no idea what.

I walked away feeling nauseous, dizzy, breathless. The worst part? She had no idea that she'd just punched me in the throat.

The irony of Lames being the next person I encountered was not lost on me.

He drank my Americano and listened with sympathetic eyes as I told the story. It came rushing out in disjointed sentences and fragmented thoughts. I was sucking in deep choking gasps of air and fighting back the looming panic attack.

His silence was perfect.

"She didn't know" and "Its going to be okay" or any of those other things people say in situations like this one weren't what I needed. I knew that Tigerlilly didn't know.

I knew that she had no idea how much the loss of my brother still colored every day; that the pain festers and bubbles because I can't talk about it. Probably she had no idea that I have a dead brother at all. I also knew that it wasn't going to be okay. I'm never going to be okay with my brother's death. I'm never not going to feel the emptiness of the LittleBrother sized hole in my life.

This is the worst part of grieving- the unexpected reminders. I can steal myself for birthdays, holidays, specific places and people. But these reminders that pop up when least expected and sucker punch you? There is no way to prepare for them.