Dear Friends: The low-lights of the year

As promised, here is my sarcastic, always-look-on-the-dull side anti-Christmas letter.

I'm finding this letter hard to write, not because I had a perfect year filled only with happy, pride-inducing moments, but because it's part of my flawed psychological make up to bury the less-than-happy memories in hopes that I can pretend they never happened. Hence the years and years of therapy.

From said therapy, I can tell you this flaw is all my parents' fault. In fact, one of the low-lights of the year came in the days after Thanksgiving, when my family stayed with us. In true Bug-family style, no one talked about anything that was bothering them until my parents decided to leave early, giving no reason why (and of course I didn't ask for one, not only because that would truly go against our nature, but also because I didn't want to make them thing I didn't want them to go).

So now B and I are very much looking forward to spending Christmas with them! B is especially excited about the fights being with them will bring up between the two of us, because you know it's awesome to have to pretend you're totally happy with one another because your in-laws are watching your every move.

Speaking of in-laws, B's family has had a spate of bad luck this year: two elderly grandparents are hospitalized and don't seem to be getting any better, a middle-aged uncle got diagnosed with cancer and died about 2 weeks later, and my step-father also just received a cancer diagnosis. The guilt we felt about not spending Christmas with B's family? Now quadrupled.

On my own health front, I spent all of November and part of October battling a bug that made me exhausted and achy. Then, just as that cleared, I got a bout of chronic headaches that strike everyday between 1 and 2 p.m. They're so precise I don't even need a watch! Talking with my doctor to figure out if they're migraine or tension headaches, but either way, headaches are one of those poorly understood conditions that call for lots of trial and error. So I see lots of doctor's appointments in my future. It'll be a good excuse to get to know my doctor better.

B has also had a list of illnesses (chronic and acute) that I won't go into here lest I breach his privacy. But let's just say it's a long and varied list, much longer say, than the list of things I want for Christmas. Fun!

Now that health and the families are covered, we can move on to the low-lights of my writing life. They mostly consist of the pile of rejection letters housed in my desk drawer--a new one just added to the pile days ago! What a nice surprise to see a SASE in my handwriting amidst the cheery green and red envelopes in my mailbox. I couldn't wait to open it to find out who had rejected me now. (An anthology of stories about baseball, if you must know.)

We also added an insanely difficult-to-train dog to our little family. Nothing like a dog that constantly, and I mean CONSTANTLY, needs attention/reassurance to annoy the crap out of you. And speaking of crap--he's also been difficult to potty train! And our other dog has developed the wonderful ability to grab food off of the counter no matter how far back you place it/what kind of security system you set up. Say bye-bye to lots of "cooling" Christmas cookies...

I think that covers most of 2009. Looking forward to learning what will ail me, my family, and the world in the New Year.