What Do You Know, I'm Smiling!

And so it shall be that at 3 o'clock the next morning, I will be marching back to work after a long vacation, armed with the dreaded but inevitable extra pounds, my trusty cloths and trinkets of vanity, a renewed sense of peace, and a stouter, happier heart. In fact, banning the Christmases of my childhood, this holiday season has been the happiest I've had in years. Knowing that I would have to go back to work soon enough doesn't seem half as dismal as it used to be, not with the memories of mornings and breakfasts spent at my family's home in Naga still warm against my sentimental heart; the sound of my father's laughter, my mom's words of wisdom, my brothers' stories and my kids' precocious, childish bickerings still ringing in my ears; the feeling of contentment (finally, a word that I can claim as mine) wrapping me like some watchful, protective guardian.
Sigh.
There's nothing like home to rejuvinate a tired, anxious mind (in particular, this mind); nothing like family to remind me (and, I hope, everyone else) that I am not alone, no, never alone.