I wrote in an email last week to my Mom that I have made some decisions, recognizing that I am at a new stage of my life, about how I will act and what I will feel, and that I’ve accepted that I am now 46 years old; I might have 40 more years to live, or four, or just four days…after all my family’s creed is  “tomorrow you could be run over by a pie wagon.”

I want to live my life in a way that more deeply fulfills me, and I want to make choices which reflect that, and mostly I don’t want to be ‘afraid’ that people will judge me about it, when those choices are different from theirs …When I was younger for example, although truth be told, as recently as this year, if my Mom or Dad called me on a morning and I was still in my pajamas and had not yet left for work, I would tell a little white lie that I was already on my way to work…why?  Because I didn’t want my parents to think I was a slacker.  That is just a silly example of a very serious flaw that has resided in me for all of my adult life and one that I believe I am done with owning…Fear of disappointing my parents, that I was not working hard enough or did not have enough of a drive to earn a good living or that my work ethic was not as strong as my Dad’s or, or, or…you see my Dad LOVES, L O V E S to work…hard.  He does not have hobbies, he does not watch sports, he does not like to hang out at a bar, he does not go to the beach…”play time” that is appealing to him is using his Kubota to move heavy objects from one place to another, or digging holes or planting trees or building new pantry doors for my mother, or, or, or…so for much of my life I have been striving to achieve this level of productiveness and I realized this winter, it is not who I am and it is not who I want to be.

I got the beginnings of a cold on Super Bowl Sunday and proceeded to work fewer than 50 hours this entire month of February…I had what I think was the flu during the first week of the month and a deep chest cold during the second, and by last week I finally felt a bit more alive, but still not good, and I did a lot of crocheting and a lot of thinking these last 24 days.  I thought until my thinker was sore, as Dr. Seuss might say, and I decided that I want to be comfortable with working hard enough to pay my bills and survive in this modern world,  but to also be comfortable with spending my Saturdays this summer on the beach in a chair watching my boyfriend teach three beautiful little girls  how to surf, or spending a Friday night looking at the stars above our houses  with my son-in-law and drinking shots of FireBall until we can’t keep our eyes open, or not leaving for work until after 10 on a Wednesday because this boy I love and I want to go out to breakfast…just because…

I feel like I have accepted that being afraid of appearing to be a slacker to my parents diminishes my quality of life.  I don’t mean to sound so dramatic, it’s not.  My parents are both VERY unlike their parents…in TOO many ways to count, and neither of them ever felt the need to apologize for it.  My mom and dad are both so dissimilar to both of their mothers and fathers that you could count what they had in common on one hand.  If I find one month that I’ve got an extra $150 I would get a massage and fill my wine rack…my mom, when she was my age, would’ve bought a savings bond for my daughter or just added the credit to her household budget.  My mom is VERY responsible and I do envy her skill at money management.  My Dad married her almost 48 years ago and has known nothing of their financial situation since.  She is extraordinary, and I have come to accept that I am not her.  My Dad is now retired, and is STILL the hardest working man I will EVER know, now he just works at home or for us, his family, and not for the rich customers on the beach.  He is extraordinary, and I have come to accept that I am not him.

I spent most of my adult life fearful of not measuring up to their expectations, and have come to realize this month of bitterly cold gray days that it does not matter, they did not put them on me, I put them on me.  A friend mailed a book to me a couple of years ago called “When Fear Falls Away” and I read it, and I really really liked it, but I don’t know if I got out of it what my friend did, because frankly I didn’t change much, and I still felt all the same angst I always did…now, these bleak February days sort of pushed me over my edge…I can’t say that I “get it” fully but I get it better now, my fear of being a not good enough daughter, worker, mother, friend, housekeeper, etc., all of it is self induced pressure and I think this month I’ve finally popped from it.  I don’t claim to be enlightened or changed or that I have no fears anymore, but I do, these last couple of days feel a little more comfortable with who I am and who I’ve been, and it is after 9 and I have not left for work yet and I am not afraid to own it.  I think it’s a step in the right direction…

We are not new to this thing called love.  We are adults with histories and pasts, and who lived full lives long before we knew the other existed…We both once said “I do” to somebody else, we both have said “I love you” to other people, we both have shared living spaces with other people, we both have gone on vacations with other people, each of us both made a daughter with somebody else, we both have shared laughter and tears with some  other person at some  other time, …so there is nothing “new” really at all that I can do for this man I love that  hasn’t already happened, that’s not already been done by some other person at some other time…

I’ve had people SAY they were going to be good to me and good for me, and I’ve had people SAY or WRITE all the right words to make me believe it, and so I suppose too there are no words I could say or write to this man that have not been said or written before by somebody else at some other time…there is nothing new I can offer…we neither are, nor can we be, each other’s first anything…yet each time I catch his eye, in each moment of unspoken kindness, in each grin or smile, it feels somehow as if everything is new…it feels like my heart is whole, and I feel like he filled in all my curved lines and sharp angles with vibrant, brilliant, unimaginable colors, before I even realized  black and white wasn’t good enough…

Each day I’ve known this boy I’m going to marry I more wholeheartedly believe that all the days, months, and years that we lived before we met were practice…practice for a chance to do a relationship right and to be a good partner, to not make the same errors, mistakes, or poor choices we made before.  I feel angry with myself that when things are peachy, sunny, and going smoothly I am filled to overflowing with kindness for all and love for many, but the minute things turn blue, cloudy, or my life path begins to get rocky and our plans get thwarted, I default to a nasty moroseness that benefits no one, least of all us. That’s not being wholehearted, that’s being caught up in the minutiae, disjointed and focused on so little that is wrong, rather than so much that is right.  I don’t want to be a girl whose default is negative, better to be one whose default is positive.  I strive every day to be happy and to not get sucked into the vortex of this modern world we live in…want-want-want-more-more-more-me-me-me-I-I-I…I have love and a roof over my head, and  family &  friends near and far…I am living as whole  a life as can be.

When I have said unkind things or thought unkind thoughts I try to reboot by remembering our 1st date, our first kiss, those first days and weeks of that first summer…“All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer — one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going — one of those summers which, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.”  I’ve realized that THAT is what I can do for him…I can try to make every season seem new, make every ‘I love you’ sound new to his ears…make every laugh & every smile feel fresh and unexpected, every ‘good morning’ and every ‘good night,’ every time I meet his gaze or reach for his hand, and love him enough that it feels new, over and over, maybe even til death do us part…

I realized the other night that I’ve become rather carried away with the idea of making plans…I wear a ring when I am not working that is supposed to be a symbol for something…it screams “a boy asked me to marry him” but it quietly utters the question, “now what?”  Since the day of my engagement  I’ve had a nearly nightly affair with Pinterest; looking at wedding dresses, flower girl hair halos, lighted arched willow branches, perfectly arranged table settings, fonts for modern embossed invitations, and drooling over ridiculously ornate wedding cakes, and recently noticed with a bit of sadness and mild unease that I’ve been looking at the screen of my phone and ipad more than I’ve been looking at my boyfriend’s face.  I realize it is time for me to take a break from thinking about the future.

This man I love has little to no interest in a formal wedding or reception, and I thought I didn’t either, until the question was asked and I said, ‘yes,” and then my imagination and a lifetime of dreaming  sort of possessed me.  I can’t say that I wasn’t warned…shortly after we started dating and had fallen inexplicably fast in love, he said to me one morning, “if I had the money we’d fly to Vegas and get married tomorrow.”   He had told me enough of his past and his regrets, that I was well aware and forewarned that he was not going to have a fancy formal wedding with all the bells, whistles, and expenses, if ever he was again to get married.  I knew this, and yet over these last several weeks could not seem to help myself from buying overpriced thick glossy magazines with names like ‘ The Knot, Modern Bride, Bridal Ideas, and New Jersey Wedding Guide.’  You see, I was married, a mother, and divorced, all before my 20th birthday…my first wedding, shortly before Labor Day weekend in the summer of 1985, was in retrospect, the saddest day of my life and I knew nothing good was going to happen for me as a result of it, and nothing did.  So to write that I’ve been dreaming of a wedding full of joy, excitement, love, and promises to be good to each other, is something of an understatement…it’s been much more than a dream for all this time, it’s been this strange unattainable “goal” in my brain.

I have always wanted to be a wife, despite a minor in Women’s Studies and Feminist Theory, and numerous research papers, regarding a woman’s worth, & the history of women’s rights and status, that would indeed indicate otherwise.  A few of my girlfriends have told me over the years that they are sure it is due to my father’s unwavering adoration of my mother, and I am well aware that I do not ‘need’ a husband, nor do I need a piece of paper joining me to any man, but it is something that has mattered to me, a lot, for all the years of my adult life.  Now that there is a man in my life who says he wants to marry me, I realize I’ve been far more interested in the plans associated with the whole “future event” than with the life we are presently living.

A few nights ago in an effort to make myself drowsy, I was scrolling through my past years of Facebook posts and happened upon one from September 25th 2010; the night of my 25th high school reunion.  I had a very fun time at my reunion, reconnecting with many women from my past.  The man I now love was there, a stranger to me then; we were acquainted with many of the same people, people we both talked with for hours, and he was in the band, the drummer, at this reunion, and despite knowing so many of the same people and mingling in the same room, our paths did not cross, not even once…but here we are now, engaged.  We were in the very same room for hours that night, and he got introduced to and  fixed up with some other girl that very night, and I went home alone to my empty house, and now we sometimes wonder, how many other times over the years of our lives were we near each other and didn’t know…Perhaps I was not mindful of my surroundings that night, perhaps I was not present…I don’t know of any other explanation for me not noticing the most beautiful boy in the room…

From the moment we did meet, and he smiled at me, I felt like I never wanted to look at another face…but for these past many weeks I’ve not really looked at him at all…I look at my glimmery-shimmery ring, I look at pictures of flower arrangements, and web sites for all-inclusive honeymoon destinations, I’ve been busy making playlists of love songs and playlists of dance songs… I’ve got all these ideas for a party he doesn’t even want  to have…I’ve not been present…I’ve been busy making plans, focused on what might be, not what is…John Lennon wrote in Beautiful Boy, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”  It’s time for me to get back to life, back to reality…if he changes his mind and wants to have a party, I’m sure he’ll let me know.  If he decides on a wedding date, I’m pretty sure I’m the first one he’s going to tell.  I got myself caught up in thoughts of the future and need to pause, and just be right here, right now…for now…

A baby will cry the SECOND she is irritated, hungry, too cold, too hot, stuck in an uncomfortable position, or hurt, with no filter, no hesitation, no wondering if a good hearty cry is really the most acceptable or effective form of communication, the baby will just let it out…mewing with tears or a full-bodied wail with heaving sobs…whatever kind of cry the baby creates it is because she is not feeling good…We assume she is feeling something other than what she wants to be feeling.  It is so simple.  Why once we are all “grown up” do we have to hide behind a facade of “everything’s fine” ALL the time??!!  What if a good heaving cry with buckets of tears is the best way to communicate that something is amiss??!!  Why do we have to filter ourselves as adults to the point of NOT feeling or NOT expressing our genuine upset or distress??!!

Now to be clear, I have not felt the need to have a good cry in a number of months.  For me, when I honestly feel that need to have a deep cleansing cry that gets me in a good position to reboot and restart I will watch –Steel Magnolias– or  –Terms of Endearment-.  When I feel over anxious or over stressed or just so NOT me, I find a really good sob is an excellent way to regroup.  There are a number of films that get me to that climactic sobbing state, but these two are for me a guaranteed good cry.  To be clear, I sobbed with Marley & Me, The Notebook, Titanic, Hachi , My Girl…in fact I think my propensity to appreciate a good cry started at a very young age, at the drive-in theater in our town when I was a little girl, in the back of my parent’s Pinto, when I first saw Dumbo.  Anyone who does not cry when Dumbo’s momma rocks him in her trunk is just cold as ice or secretly a robot and won’t GET the drift of today’s writing no matter what…

I enjoy happy tears too…the kind that come to me when I watch When Harry Met Sally, Ever After, The Princess Bride, Pretty Woman, Sense and Sensibility, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, Pride and Prejudice, Love Actually, Nine Months…the list is very long.  I also enjoy the kind of tears that come to me from gut busting laughter, like from the movies Ted, The Big Lebowski, There’s Something about Mary, Best in Show, the blow job tutorial from Old School, the news segment in Bruce Almighty…you know, Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy sorts of really funny stuff that you can’t help but laugh out loud!!!

Now I have cried my eyes out and had actual LOL’s with books too…but I don’t dog ear my favorites, and books take much longer to get through than a dvd…so they are not my go to source when I need a good laugh or a good cry.  I was thinking about the act of or art of crying yesterday when I was babysitting the wee-ones in my life who had a snow day off of school and how the older one, who is now eight, seldom cries, at least not in front of me, unless she is physically injured, or really upset about a situation, or has hurt feelings.  The little one, who just turned six, still cries a lot with not a lot of prompting, she defaults to crying whenever things are not going precisely her way at that very moment, and it got me wondering when does it change?  When do we evolve from the immediate cry for immediate information communication to the more logical and reasonable?  It can’t just be once we speak, because in my world, babies talk and communicate effectively and clearly VERY early.

I’ve cried, but a different kind of cry, when I’ve been overwhelmed with beauty, nature, and love.  I’ve cried, but a different kind of cry when I twisted out my knee in kickboxing, when I had vein surgery that went wrong, and  when I fell off a ladder.  I’ve cried, but a different kind of cry when I think about my parents dying, or my daughter, or her kids.  I’ve cried, but a different kind of cry when I’ve been frustrated, irritated, and confused about life, my life, asking myself “how did I get here?” at various times.  In a biology class many years ago I learned that there are different kinds of tears, they might feel the same on our cheeks, but that reflex tears, like from a thorn in your eye, are very different from emotional tears, like when your daughter drives off to start her married life, and the tears like when you blow your nose too hard are just the kind that keep your eyeballs from drying out like a scene from an apocalyptic science fiction movie.

But yesterday I got to thinking about all the things associated with crying, tears, and feelings, and I realized that it has been months since I was driven to tears…the sad, the worried, the frustrated, the anxious, the hurt, the injured… I have laughed very hard over the last month during several movies, I have laughed because the little kids in my life were clever, cute, and creative.   I have laughed with both my Mom and my Aunt because they both tell a great story.  I have laughed because my boyfriend and I seem to be on a sushi bender and can’t seem to stop.  I haven’t had to filter myself, I haven’t had to mask my feelings, I haven’t had to pretend that everything is fine when it isn’t…it got me thinking that maybe things are just right, “sleeping baby right,”  right now.

On too many occasions, I’ve walked upstairs to my office or outside to my garage, only to discover upon arrival that I’ve no recollection whatsoever as to why I am there…and yet, with precise detail and sweet emotion, I can describe and remember the minutes and the  hour after the birth of my daughter, holding each of her ten tiny fingers, one at a time, and marveling at the perfectly shaped nail on the tip of each one.  28 years ago this week my heart ripped open and I’ve cared about somebody else, more than myself, every second, of every day, since.  When your heart rips wide open on the day you become a mother, you have no idea really, at all, how your heart will never go back to the way it was before.  You believe that all your parts will bounce back to the way they were, and some really blessed or lucky women do get their previously perfect bellies and boobs back, but for most of us, none of our parts, especially our hearts, are ever the same again.  Sometimes you think you’d like to return to an existence when all you really had to worry about was getting to school or work on time, how fabulous your outfit was,  and how your hair looked, but once the heart is ripped open this way, it is impossible for it to return to its previous state of egocentric self centeredness…

Remembering is sometimes so strange, we can dwell in upset for days or weeks or months during difficult situations or bad circumstances and then the second that things turn around, we forget all of the negative we had been holding onto…and in the case of parenting, I find, as each year passes, that I remember fewer and fewer of the rough times and am able to recall more and more of the smooth times.  In high school we learn about Mendel, his peas, and why we have green eyes, & we learn about Pavlov, his dogs, and why we want praise for good behavior.   In college we learn about Freud and why we want to marry our fathers & we learn about Kant and why we understand right from wrong…but nothing EVER prepares us for understanding what it means to mother, to be A mother.  I know women who had mothers who were world-class worry-warts, and tried to protect them from everything, and I know women who had mothers who chose to protect them from nothing.  I know women who had mothers who never ever punished them, and I know women who were beaten by the very mother who then demanded their love.

It’s EASY to fail your child, let’s face it, we ALL have demons, skeletons, and regrets and it’s often difficult to keep those negatives from tinting and distorting one’s view of the present, but as the days of our lives become memories, it’s often easier to recall the happy, the good, and the pleasant memories…and they color the present in a pleasing way…It’s very hard to be handed a human that can do NOTHING for itself, and take care of it until it can do EVERYTHING for itself…yet we keep doing it, over and over and over…

When your baby is an infant, you watch her roll off the sofa, because that one fall will be enough for her to learn that she can’t go too close to the edge without getting hurt—and a few months later you watch her let go of the coffee table and fall on her way to the chair, because that one fall will be enough for her to learn that she has to balance before she takes a step—and many years later when she is a teenager you watch her fall for a really stupid awful boy, because that bad breakup will be enough for her to learn that she has to look for qualities other than straight white teeth and big biceps to truly fall in love—and a few years later you watch her drive away, in her car filled to overflowing with all the things she thinks she can’t live without, on a muggy mid July morning, hours before the sun has even come up, to move to her new place in North Carolina where her new husband is already there and waiting for her…and you will cry your eyes out as you nervously clean and scrub every single inch of your house, for hours and hours and hours until you get the phone call that she has arrived safely…and all of the sudden you realize, you did it…you took a human who could do nothing for herself, and  cared, loved, and tended to her until she could do everything for herself—and almost ten years later you watch your neighbor every day, your baby all grown up, as she does it too, with two…

…and so, the woman who has wished for years and years and years to be in a wonderfully loving relationship & for someone to love her dearly enough and truly enough for her to have the title of “wife,” and the woman who, at 14 years old, when she had her very first pang of ‘true love’ swirled and twirled her pens and markers over and over and over on every album cover and any blank piece of paper in her bedroom, writing and signing her name as if she were married to this boy she was sure she “loved,” rather unexpectedly and surprisingly finds herself telling her betrothed that she doesn’t think she’s going to take his name when they get married later this year…the girl who wondered what her signature would look like with every last name of every “real” boyfriend she’s ever had,  how it would flow on a credit card receipt or her driver’s license, and how the letters would wind and weave around themselves, is oddly, now that she has finally found one dear enough and true enough, for REAL, a man who loves her for all that she is, and more importantly, despite all that she is not, is not practicing her ‘new’ signature with a new last name…

I might take his name, but I might not…it doesn’t matter either way, I don’t think, but what I find strange is that for the first time in my adult life there is real unconditional love, and there was a real proposal, and there was a really beautiful ring, and there is talk and conversation and planning about dates and guests and vows…and with all this wonderful reality, I suddenly find myself no longer pretending…

I met a man a year and a half ago whose laughter, smile, eyes, talent, personality, and kindness lit up my life in a way I always dreamed of but never expected.  I hadn’t “given up” really, but I thought my chances for a relationship like this were long over; I was too old, too set in my ways, too demanding of what I wanted and what I needed, to be particularly compatible with anybody.  I have looked at his face every single day since our first date and every single day I think how glad I am that I met him.   I can’t pretend that it has been perfect for every single one of those days…We have had some difficulties and we have had a few sad and stressful times, but that’s life and those experiences, both the good and the bad, got us to where we are today.

New Year’s Eve for me has always been a time to reflect on the days behind me and to think about the days ahead of me & while I know nothing about baseball, and sports analogies seem uncharacteristic of me,  I do think of a year as the hits and the misses of the last 525,600 minutes.  Every year I grow older, and hopefully wiser, I know better that I can do nothing about those days of my past but that I can do much better with those days in front of me.

In 2011 I was involved with a man who used an expression about how being in love “halves your sadnesses and doubles your joys”  but the months that I was in that relationship, I was more sad and less joyful than I think I’d ever been.  I let myself be fooled and acted foolish, and when it was finally over  I felt stupid.  I like to think that all bad experiences lead to valuable learning tools, and I have, during these 18 months of happiness, thought back on that difficult experience and I feel like I do not even know that person… what on earth was she thinking, where was her backbone and confidence??!!  It’s embarrassing, when you have to accept responsibility for stupid things you have done and said, and we all have at one time or another done stupid things and said stupid things.  I have learned since that awful time that being in love actually can  halve your sadness and double your joy, BUT you have to be in love with a good quality person who is good for you…I have learned that I love myself and my life so much more, because I have been surrounded for these 18 months by a quality, creative, passionate, loving person…and those characteristics of his,  bring out those same qualities in me.

So we are today on the edge of a new year, and I can think of no better time to take a look at who I am, who I want to be, who I thought I was, who I tried to be…that sort of self-reflection that is sometimes necessary when you wish to keep your past in your past and press on ahead.  Most events of our lives are hit or miss…there is much mediocrity to be sure, but in general I think things are good or bad, happy or sad.  I have had jobs that did not work out and I have had relationships that did not work out, and I have had many situations in life that were pretty sweet in my daydreaming moments  but horribly sour in my waking moments, but despite the few lows and misses in a life filled mostly with smiles and hits,  I have used the bad situations and uncomfortable experiences to teach me something…I may not always know what I want, but with each failure and with each miss  I’ve learned what I don’t want.

When I was in that low place of 2011 I was given a copy of  a poem by David Whyte called Sweet Darkness.  I was asked to read it by a woman who cared about me & thought it might help me get my head on straight, to look at things from a different perspective and to turn myself around…  “* Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own…There you can be sure you are not beyond love…The night will give you a horizon further than you can see…You must learn one thing: the world was made to be free in…Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your alone-ness to learn, anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.*” 

I had that last line on my refrigerator for months…*anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.*  It was such a powerful statement and rang like a gong in my head when I finally felt “healed” from that bizarre situation…which now seems like a lifetime ago.  I read it every single day for months.  I honestly can’t recall the day I took it down in 2012, or the day I read it and realized that wound had healed.  I can’t write with any certainty the day or time of year that I realized I was in a relationship where the person who says to me the words, “I LOVE You” brought me more alive than I ever imagined I could be.  Tonight when I count my blessings of the last 364 days, and make my wishes for the next 365, I am going to give an extra special thanks to the universe, for not giving up on me despite my frequent failings and misses, and for bringing a ‘hit’ into my life that makes almost every day feel like a home run…

I was very surprised on Christmas morning when  I unwrapped a very big box, which was a case of wine but felt light as a feather…and when I opened it there was another smaller wrapped box inside, and another inside that, and another inside that…and then the little square box.  Anyone who knows me knows that I was really wishing that when I opened said box it was not a pair of earrings, or a container of paper clips, or an assortment of eyeshadow, but being the considerate person I am, in those few seconds I told myself to look happy and be appreciative if it was not what I hoped it was.  I was taught at a very young age that whenever anybody thinks to give you a gift, you are to be thankful that someone thought of you at all, regardless of what it is, or if it is nothing you want, you be polite and absolutely must put a smile on your face…my mother taught this to me ages ago, so it was right there in my brain as I opened the box…but the box did not hold earrings or paperclips or eyeshadow, it held a * beautiful * sparkly * shimmery * modern engagement ring and a band to match, and as I uttered shakily “oh my God” and he asked, “does this mean yes?” I realized that I didn’t  have to pretend to be elated,  that THIS was IT!!!

My parents, my father in particular, used to remind me to –think before you speak– and it would drive him positively mad when I insisted on having the last word…so as an adult I truly am okay with being silent, even when I’ve still got much to say, and I am comfortable with letting someone think they’ve won an argument by letting them have the last word, and I do not want to say words that I will regret, or later have to apologize for.  Once you speak words, they can’t be taken back and the person you said those hurtful things to can’t ever “un-hear” them…so I try to think before I speak and I try to be quiet if I can’t be kind.  For example, if I had a friend who had a really ugly husband and she called to tell me she was pregnant, what I might want to say is “-wow, I hope it doesn’t look like your husband-” BUT…instead I would choose a more socially acceptable statement like “-you must be thrilled-” because it’s kind.

I am neither a nitwit nor oblivious to the statistics of marriages in this country, and when adults choose to create a shared life, know that there are technical, legal, and practical things that need to be addressed in the event that things don’t work.  I know very well that before I ever get married I need to modify my will and dot my ‘i’s” and cross my ‘t’s” and if we were coming into this union both owning homes, he would surely make the same accommodations for his own child, as I would expect him to.   If neither of us had children it would be less of an issue, or if we were both crazy Brangelina or Kardashianish wealthy it would not be an issue at all, but this is real life and  while it is not at all romantic, it is necessary.  Who knows what kind of glorious future we will build together, who knows what kind of wonderful life we might create and where we might end up…we’ll modify our practical bits as we go…BUT…these are not the things I want to talk about, or even think about, when I am sharing exciting news that on Wednesday morning the boy I love asked me to marry him.

Through the 19th century a new bride came with a dowry…a goat, a cow, some money, some dishes, some family heirlooms, and food to stock a pantry and in Europe girls could not inherit property from their fathers.  It always seemed to me in history books and on PBS programs like it meant, ‘take our daughter out of our hair and have this stuff.’  Back when my mother and nana were married,  unless she came from a wealthy family, a new bride pretty much brought -nothing to the table- so to speak, and came with nothing but a promise for sex and cooking, and a hope for a healthy uterus and some good DNA and perhaps a cedar chest filled with linens.  Men in general had careers, occupations, or jobs, and homes of their own, and generally women had neither careers nor occupations and maybe had a job, or maybe a college degree that they probably would never use, and a wish to be a wife…there was nothing at all balanced about those relationships, and the expectation of a dowry had long been forgotten.

I think in this modern world where families blend together like they do, where an eight year-old girl is going to have a 28 year-old step sister, and where a woman already owns her house and where a man is in between careers, there has to be an understanding from their friends and families that it all may appear to be out of balance, but it is theirs to sort out and steady at their own pace and in their own way.  I’ve read that when you are in a social situation and have something to say, your are supposed to ask yourself three questions: is it true, is it kind, is it necessary?  I am 46 years old, I don’t need to be told that I am silly and that it’s just  a piece of paper…this sort of statement most often has been said to me by people who HAVE that piece of paper.  That’s like me, living in this amazing house and telling a homeless person, ‘-it’s just plywood and a metal roof-‘.  Or to a friend desperate to get pregnant as I have my beautiful daughter and precious perfect grandchildren beside me, ‘-oh, it’s silly to want a baby, they’re just a cluster of divided cells.-‘

I grew up in a household where my father adored my mother and still does.  “She’s the best wife I ever had” is a sentiment he uses often and with a twinkle in his eye and a grin on his face.  I have always wanted to be wanted THAT much. I have had dreams of someone I love wanting me to be his wife.  It may be silly and old-fashioned, but it matters to me, a lot.  People like happy stories.  People love love.  The world needs more love and more happy stories.  There are PLENTY of awful, miserable, and sad things going on in the world every hour of every day…I think it’s nice, if even for a day, somebody shares news that is joyful and hopeful, and this week I felt really excited to do the sharing.

This day before Christmas can be so hectic and positively overwhelming for so many people, and the older I get, the more I understand that it’s all a self-inflicted deluge.  There are no “rules” of which I am aware that imply a child of a certain age is supposed to get a certain number of gifts, or that one has to spend an equal dollar amount per child, or have precisely the same number of gifts for each child under the tree, or that one even must have a tree, or play holiday music during the month, or visit family or…well, anything…as far as I know, or have been told, the holiday is what we choose to make it.  We can create joy, kindness, loving feelings, and magnificently decorated sparkling surfaces, or we can do nothing different from what we do the other 364 days in the year.

I am neither religious nor a Christian, so the meaningfulness and formality of the holiday is not particularly significant for me.  My family lives both within 1000 feet and 10 miles from me, so I’ve no travel obligations.  My child is grown and married with children of her own, so there is no “necessity” to create this environment of toy explosion in my living room under the tree tomorrow morning.   I’ve no spouse or in-laws so I don’t have those obligations to do “his family this year, and mine next year” as I frequently overhear women talk about in conversations during the holiday season.  I don’t work at a job where we have a Christmas party or gift exchange.  On this day before Christmas I am reminded that I have nothing to do but what I WANT to do.

What I want to do tonight is to read The Night Before Christmas to my granddaughters, as I did every Christmas Eve to my own daughter.  I want to remember to get the candy canes in the flower pots before morning so that the children see their “harvest” from planting their peppermint seeds.  I want to remember to take our ‘Elf on the Shelf’ Everbloom, off of the top of the Christmas tree, the same spot the girls have found her every Christmas Eve for the last four seasons, and hide her since she is supposed to be back in the North Pole before morning.  What I want to do today is to get to the store to buy M&M’s for my boyfriend’s daughter’s stocking that is hanging on the fireplace and to remember to get extra batteries for gifts I bought for the girls and to get to my parent’s house with my homemade macaroons for my Dad and my orange rolls for my Mom.

I watch the news almost every night and I read “news” posts on social media every day…I know that so many people this day are angry at store clerks, upset in lines at the bank, irritated with gas station attendants, freaking out over airport delays and icy runways, honking over desirable parking spaces at malls, slamming shopping carts into rude aisle hogs at the supermarket, yelling because their bakery order or floral arrangements are not ready at 11 as they were told…I choose to not be involved in any of this unkindness or irritability or upset.   I choose to play The Nutcracker, Johnny Cash’s, Elvis’, Frank Sinatra’s, and Nat King Cole’s Christmas albums, over and over over because I love them.  I choose to enjoy each minute of each hour of this Eve of Christmas because I want to…and my Christmas wish for you is that you choose to do the same.

I’ve heard this expression, and thought about it last night, while making wishes on the last full moon of the year…I know what the old-fashioned Scottish nursery rhyme means, “If Wishes Were Horses then Poor Men Would Ride,” it means you get nowhere and nothing by wishing for anything, but there I was last night, looking out my window at that radiant round moon, making wishes…There are things and moments about the past year I want to remember for the rest of my days on this earth and there are things and moments about the past year that I dearly want to forget.  There are things I desperately want to change in the coming new year and things that I want very much to remain the same.

I made only two wishes for myself last night…the rest were for those I love and a few for people I don’t even know.  It feels somehow ‘pure’ to me, to wish, the act of making a wish…juvenile and immature some might call it; wishing on stars, full moons, fallen eyelashes, itchy palms, head-side-up pennies, throwing salt over my left shoulder, smudging with sage…all those old-fashioned superstitions some call “silly” but are part of who I am, or who I think I am…it’s like an innocence in some way…a belief that I’ve been good enough, kind enough, generous enough, loving enough…that good things I wish for and hope for will happen…

A friend of mine shared an article with me recently about ’20 things to let go of’ as we head into a new year & most of them are what I call the ‘obvious’ ones; worry and stress and anger for example, which seem pointless to me because I think we either are worry-warts with anxiety and rage, or we aren’t, and it’s hard to “let go” of something that is so firmly established in our character, but some of the ones I really liked, and that I believe are doable,  were to ‘stop thinking that you need to do more and be more than what you are, stop focusing on your money woes and focus on your abundance, stop thinking that you are damaged because you are not where you want to be in your life, stop dwelling on what you regret, stop being afraid of the uncertainty of your future’ and I liked thinking last night that I can probably manage all of these 20 things with practice and patience, to make my next year better, knowing it won’t happen overnight, but it could happen over 365 nights…

I watched a story on the news yesterday evening about a line of people in California waiting to buy lottery tickets for one of the biggest jackpots in history that stretched all the way to the Nevada boarder…those people were making wishes no? …and don’t get me wrong, I know people win, but I also know the odds of winning are really, really slim…it seemed to me, very late last night, looking out at the dark shadowy sky, looking up at the gorgeous glowing moon, that my wishes on the last full moon of the year were perhaps just as likely to come true as the wishes of others for six numbers all in a row…