Well, Christmas break is almost over, for me anyway. I always end early. I kind of like it that way. At least, I like it as much as I am frustrated by it so I break even.

Hmmm. Breaking even. That has been the feeling for awhile now. New faces come. Old faces fade out. Challenges advance. Sometimes I lose and sometimes I win, er survive... but mostly I am where I was before. And I never seem to do much more than break even. It still is a break of a sort with all the feeling of separation and loss of something inexplicable and therefore unmournable.

There have been days here in Montana where I have felt very much like this is the only home I will ever truly have, like I belong here and here alone. Yet there have been days which chase that feeling away and the mountains surrounding this little valley look as much like a choke hold as they ever did an embrace.

Have you ever tried to maintain a relationship based on who you used to be? You can do it for awhile because you have loads of experience with all of those things that used to interest you and you are very good at those old activities. But for you, they are fond memories and you enjoy them as much for that as you do for doing them in the present. It is not, however, the nature of people to stay static. Leave a friend alone for a  year and see what you still have in common, see if they have not grown. If you do not see it, perhaps one or both of you is only keeping up because of fond memories of what used to be.

Montana is like that for me. It changes when I am away and I change too. Then I come back and our reunion is messy. I can tell you with certainty that when I go for a walk after dark and pass frozen pastures with horses eating sweet hay before they sleep, I know I am home. There is room for me here. More than that, I can almost believe there is room for all of my changes. But during the day, the busy walking about day, I constantly run headlong into confines that used to fit quite comfortably. I was younger and smaller then. I hadn't explored all of who I could be yet. But I'm also not done growing up. I don't think I will be done until I die.

I suspect Montana and I (and a good many people) will have a complicated relationship for a good while. Perhaps it's just the new normal.