New Year Flight..

Flying out to Texas to celebrate the new year with S, A, D, K, N, Y, B, and my guy! So many people. This is my new full family. It will be the first time all of us will be together.

If I permit myself to be excited about it, it's actually quite exciting. We are all very good people. The only person I don't really know about is N. But even if he's rotten, he is surrounded by positive people, therefore he can't remain completely untouched by our positivity... it's not possible.

I might be a little hard on the guy here, but I don't know him at all. All I know is that he hates Obama, is quite emotionally undisciplined and that K is a sweetie and perhaps may spoil him.

I've got to stay on the positive track! We will all be together. For a good seven days! That's quite a long time. We will be able to get past the holiday formalities and just live amongst each other for at least 2 of the seven days. I've not been back to Texas for a good 4 years. Despite being in touch with K and D via Facebook and text messages, I have not layed eyes on them for years.

K is now 20. D is now 16 or 17. S is 21 and married!! Imagine that. The girls no longer live at the family home. D has been through a bout with drugs. Knowing the changes I've gone through in the last 4 years I can't imagine how different they are.

My goal this week is to embrace the change in my family. To embrace the new folks and pay attention to and encourage any positive changes to my siblings. At the same time I've got to be kind to myself. I've got to be patient with myself.

Sitting at the back of the plane. Listening to the Ricky Gervais podcast. Definitely calm. Turbulence happens but as long as I can look outside at the beautiful sunrise, my fears are taken away. I don't know what it is about looking out at the landscape whenever a stressful flight moment happens. It completely calms me. I imagine if I were to be in a plane plummeting towards the earth, I'd be the person silently staring out of the window, watching the ground get closer and closer.