December

Disclaimer: This is a mega-downer post.  It is such a downer post I probably shouldn't even post it.  But I am.  If you want to see a "Woo! Berlin!" post, try sometime last year.
Okay, you've been warned.

It's December 7th, 2012.  Supposedly the world will come to an end in 14 days.  Right now, life is happening, and I keep falling apart.  Every year, no matter where I am, what continent I happen to be on, it's like this.  November is a painful, treacherous backslide where I try to dig my heels in, keep my chin up, because I know it's coming: the blackness, the weakening of the soul, the time of year where I become a ball of need, a walking dead.  But no matter how hard I try in cold, gray November, no matter how hard I struggle and fight, December comes.  I am out of money, still with no job, no work permit, no creative partner, no glimpse of a steady future.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm thankful for what I have.  A wonderful mom, a medium-sized room in a flat in Berlin, caring flatmates, Robert, food to eat, my first sale in my Etsy store.  I have a lot more than a lot of people, and I am grateful.
But every year, this is the hard part.  My money from the summer has run out and I need to renew my domain or my website will go black, there's always a gig or a project that I was working on with someone and then that someone drops out, or never shows up, and then there's the music.  In Berlin, like in San Francisco, Christmas is everywhere. I cannot escape it.  It makes me miss my dad.  I get sent back to the nightmare that for some reason I can't write about.  Oh December, you make me tiny and weak.  You make me want to give up, throw in the towel, hibernate, or just stop all together.  Your snow is beautiful but unfeeling.  Will the world really end, me still broke and unwed? Will I actually get my act together to create something for my gig on the 21st, or will I just curl up behind my sewing machine and make things out of stockpiled fabric, pretending I don't exist until Spring?