The Trouble with the Night Before the Night Before Christmas

Some nights like the night before the night before Christmas can find me searching for answers. Not necessarily for the big huge important (in the traditional sense) questions, but more the ones that would only affect the corners of my heart I try not to touch anymore. 

But some nights, like this eve before Christmas Eve, shine a light on old scars begging me to remember them. What happened to that boy who once proposed to me but then left me behind? He goes by a new name, but I'd still recognize those blue eyes, the voice like velvet and that Hebrew tattoo over his heart. Time may change us into strangers, but he will always be mine in memory. 

Some nights I wish I'd made different choices or that I'd fought harder or paid more attention, but then a whisper reminds me that the end came when I was too distracted and broken by grief to truly care for anyone. Pain may not be a right excuse, but I don't think it (or its lack) would've changed the outcome. He was always walking away toward the next version of himself. 

Maybe some night, years from now, when this scar begs to be seen and remembered, there will be a new chapter to the story. Perhaps some Christmas Eve eve in the future will find him happy and healthy and recovered from his own scars and finally finally the real version of who he was always meant to be. 

Some nights I just need to empty my brain out so I can sleep again. 

Oh Santa

Dear Santa,

Year's like this I really wish I had more faith.

What I want really can't be wrapped up and delivered or carried to m in your bag and sled.  What I want, Santa, is just love and courage and hope.  I want to enter this coming year with the courage to make myself healthier and happier.  I want love because, well, who doesn't want love?  But really, I want to be able to spoil someone, to lavish affection on them, someone to laugh with and prioritize, someone who sees the best in me and desires me.  And hope...I want hope most of all.  I feel like I lack hope the most.  If you gave me nothing more than hope I think that could shore up the pieces of my heart for another year.

Merry Christmas, Santa.

Love,
Jaymin

Thou Art Giving and Forgiving

I find myself singing weird statement to the "Ode to Joy" instead of doing anything worthwhile this evening.  I had a 4 text discussion about mail order brides with a man I've never met (no, I'm not planning on being a mail order bride and neither is he), but outside of that this evening has been cheerfully normal.  Homemade cocoa was a bonus, but otherwise I watched Christmas specials on TV with my family and then tucked myself away to read.  Few pleasures in life are as perfect as drinking tea while reading a book and listening to the right soundtrack.  I'm working my way back through Hot Toy which is one of Jennifer Crusie's novellas.  It's a good one.  Guns, gin, plus some Han Solo references and a librarian who has a nephew she adores...minus the guns...it sounds a little like me.  I could use a little more in the way of Han Solo references, but that's just me.

Plus I guess I'm wondering if I'm too strange to hold a real conversation with today, but that could just be the fact that at this point I am an hour past my bedtime.  Today I convinced Forrest to type a whole paragraph just using the letters his left hand should type on the keyboard (we may have been a little bored today), finished reading a juvenile chapter books called The League of Unexceptional Children, and have been contemplating writing Tom Hiddleston a Christmas card even though he either will never get a chance to read it or won't read it until ages past Christmas.

What must that be like I wonder...having so much mail you can't keep up with it?  Real mail not email.  I'm not sure many problems could be more glorious.

I think tonight I may write a letter to Santa so I can put it in the mail tomorrow (our postal workers here in town already think I'm a loon, so it won't change anything).

Good night, my loves.  May you find yourself cheered by your own Han Solo references.

Bits

A friend of mine has been talking about panic attacks a great deal lately. I can't claim to be an expert or to know the depths of frustration and stress people who have full-blown panic attacks deal with, but I get the feelings of terror and hopelessness that can overwhelm and knock you down. 

Every so often I'll find myself doing some completely mundane activity only to suddenly have my brain go in a spiral of pain. I've had this happen a couple times this week. The aggravating part is that the trigger tends to be something happy that plays connect the dots till it reaches the frayed ends of an old broken memory or promise. Those broken promises and lost pathes still manage to get the best of me sometimes. 

Christmas time is hard. I love Christmas. I love the fact that people tend to breathe easier, that it's totally acceptable for me to sing hymns at work, that Christmas lights twinkle everywhere and I can spoil the people I adore with immunity. 

But there are times when I'm in the midst of the joy of this season where I'll see the gap that use to hold something special. There are decorations I use every year that feel bittersweet since the love that gave them to me has left me behind. I try not to let myself focus on it for long, but sometimes you miss what you miss. 

So I guess I'll just say merry Christmas, baby. I know we couldn't make it last because you had a different universe to run, but sometimes my mind flickers and longs for a time when I was the moon caught in your orbit. I hope you still find the magic. 

I hope I do too.

And the Darkness Could Not Comprehend It

Even though I'm exhausted and know I have to be up in a few hours, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this day. 

What is happening here?

At what crazy point did we tip the scales from occasionally horrific to seriously psychotic? I can't grasp this. I can't. My brain rejects this reality. I don't want my godsons, my nieces and nephews to have to grow up in a world like this. I don't want to be terrified of them traveling or to worry that they won't be safe inside their homes or churches or at work or school. I don't want them to live where they can't feel safe. 

Most of all, I don't want them to be afraid. 

I am afraid. Not so much for me, but for the people I love. I can't imagine losing someone in a tragedy like the San Bernardino shooting today or any of the seemingly endless police shootings or school shootings or hate crimes or protests that got violent or gang wars or any of this. 

What in a human being could ever switch off the ability to know compassion, kindness, and love to the point where you go and kill the innocents? What can you possibly gain with innocent blood?

NOTHING!

Nothing in the world. Or the next. 

How do you fight against something that is like a shadow creeping across creation?

I don't know what anyone else is going to do, and I'm not even real sure about me, but I do know this: I'm going to love with all I have till the day I die. I'll keep donating whatever I can (time, money, clothes, whatever); trying to show mercy and grace whenever I can; breathe deeply; express affection more freely; take more risks; and pray. 

I think if we all tried to be consciously kind and giving and willing to hear people out...it might help. 

I just want to be something good in this world and be a part of the light that the darkness does not comprehend.