Very well, thank you

As the evening wore on, Mom said, they could tell that now I am happy, and "that's what matters". After we said goodbye and I got home I called her right away, upset.

BTW, I'm unhappy with this picture here.



Their expressions. Those are the looks you get when your subjects are wondering why the shutter hasn't clicked yet. David is beginning to doubt (it's early in their visit so he's still in doubt about everything in this town), and my mother's lips are pursed because she is about to say "Will it work do you think? I am always having the same problem with that, I remember one time when..."

She doesn't look like that. She looks ten years younger when she's smiling or laughing, which she usually is.

And it was starting to rain, so this was the only picture we got.

But it stopped raining. Never mind pictures.

I don't know :-] I'm just happy/sad they were here. It's unheard of in my family, to go a full year without seeing one another, and this was it, this was all, a short evening during the town's last Friday festival.

When we parted at their downtown hotel, mom teared up and David said "You must be doing something right".

I don't often see Mom's face get wet, and it upset me all the way home and into bed and into my dreams. I think it's true, emotions are novel for the recovering alcoholic, even after a year.

What is this feeling? I don't feel sorry for myself, I don't think I ever really do, but if I witness tears that I can understand are real, then I get this feeling like something isn't ever going to be the same.

(I remember being flabbergasted to find myself tearing up at my brother's wedding. It was a step into the future. We couldn't go back. We'd forget what it was like five minutes ago. The future pounced and I practically wept.)

It's usually family stuff, though. I'm a family man for sure.

p.s. I did too get a haircut. See, there's almost none at all.