fewer and fewer

it's just two more shopping days until christmas. a quick online chat with s.r. this morning reminded me of this fact as he indicated that he still had a bit more shopping to do today. we did a quick comparison of our relative itineraries for the next few days and then it was off on our separate ways to live out said agendas.

that brief bit of dialogue did prompt my realization that my shopping was really easy this year restricted as it was to mom and work colleagues. i also started reflecting on how over the years the number of folks that i had to do shopping for has fluctuated, but it does seem that of late the total has seemed to be on the steady decline.

i can't help but wonder what does that diminishment mean for my life (other than more debt free holidays). i mean, i look up and i have no real close friends in immediate proximity to me (immediate? actually, try within hundreds of miles!!) and i am so out of practice with forming friendships i'm not sure how to even begin to do so (and certainly in my current state i truly lack the motivation to make the effort).

despite recent ruminations on the need to accept the past and move on, i have been continuing to move in and out of this mental space of questioning whether the choices in my life have been the right ones -- the constant back and forth with michael, the peripatetic lifestyle to follow job opportunity after opportunity -- what have they added up to? i'm alone at what is billed "the most wonderful time of year" and see no chances for that isolation ending anytime soon.

and now i have just two working days before i begin a stretch of vacation time that will last until the first full week of the new year. as i shared with s.r. in this morning's instant chat, that's a mixed blessing prone as i am to gloom-filled reflections when given too much time to myself. but it appears too much time and myself is all i have this christmas.