Life is what happens when you're off making other plans . . .

So life did get out of hand... like I expected it would. Maybe I should be making a more concerted effort to write a bit every day or so. Maybe that would help me deal with everything.

To re-cap the last, oh, two months:

Christmas, well, Christmas sucked. I went to the M-I-L's, and it didn't go well. Suffice it to say it wasn't as warm a welcome as I'd expected, and we spent the whole time dealing with problems - problems with the house, problems with the weather, problems with medication (not mine, or hubby's . . .) . . . so I postponed the whole holiday. Christmas happened for me on December 28th, when hub and I arrived at my parent's place.

And it was good.

Now, I'm trying to focus. Work is no different than before - I struggle with projects that are supposed to be working, but it seems like I've lost the Midas touch.

The problem that immediately faces me now, when I should long be asleep, is how to focus and get that back, with major changes staring me down. You see, my older brother is moving away on Thursday.

So what, you think. Big deal. Well, the thing is, we started our college education together, since we're really close in age. We've both been doing this grad school thing for around 6-7 years. In the same building - our labs are only a floor apart.

Plus, we're a really close family (hence the crappy Christmas, being away from my parents, my Nana, and my brothers). They're all such an important part of me, and I've been fortunate enough to go to the same school as both of my brothers - older bro and I started together in 1996, and the other one moved up to the city in 2002.

Older bro has been there with me since the first calculus exam, through countless nights in the lab, through family crises that we had to handle over the phone with the other half of the family that's still at "home" (even though we've been in our present location for 10 years, it's not "home").

I'm scared of writing up my thesis without him down the hall to listen to my griping.

I know there's email, and free VOIP (or whatever the kids are using these days), and great long distance plans. But it's not the same. My best friend in junior high moved away shortly before my 16th birthday, and this feels worse than that.

And I feel horrible, since hubby is watching me struggle with this, and he has no siblings (and has never really encountered siblings who are as close as my brothers and I are). I feel so awful that he's feeling so helpless watching me cry.

Silly, really. People live on different continents and remain best friends. My friend that moved away in junior high - she now lives on the other end of the continent, and we're just as close. I know it'll be OK. To think otherwise would be illogical.

But I just don't know yet how to make it OK.

:-(