(Note: I wrote this last year and didn't publish it because I thought it was dumb.)
Every year I promise myself that I’m going to write a Christmas letter to myself, so that when I unpack the boxes the following year, I’ll be greeted with this lovely wave of nostalgia - a yardstick of sorts to assess our growth. I never do it. But somehow you muthas have convinced me to stop hoarding all the words, so voila. My Christmas letter to myself is now my Christmas letter to you, as promised.
Every year I promise myself that I’m going to write a Christmas letter to myself, so that when I unpack the boxes the following year, I’ll be greeted with this lovely wave of nostalgia - a yardstick of sorts to assess our growth. I never do it. But somehow you muthas have convinced me to stop hoarding all the words, so voila. My Christmas letter to myself is now my Christmas letter to you, as promised.
I can’t even describe
how hard this is now—publishing the words.
I'm not sure when I became so vulnerable. I think it's something that
just happened when I started morphing into a real human again. The grief was
like a protective armor, and I'm nothing if not resourceful. I wore the armor
out of necessity, but was almost giddy at the invisible shield it provided. I
was never good at stopping the words from coming out anyway, and then you
lovely humans took sight of my shield and bestowed me with this platform. It's
no wonder the Diary became a beautiful collaboration.
My
darling boys are now 13, 8 and 5. My face hurts when I type that, because
my smile is so wide. God I could not love them an inch more. They just burst my
heart wide open. I'm doing it, madpeople. I'm succeeding. Even
when I'm not.
My big darling teenager
boy is such a source of pride for me right now. In every aspect, he is
just blooming and blossoming. His little boy-ness is completely gone, and I pray
that I was able to extract every drop of it before it disappeared. With age I
see him honing his wit. His subtle humor keeps me gliding most days. I always
thought him to be so much like Dave. With Dave out of the picture, I see
myself in him more and more. He is resourceful in the way that he uses his
humor and shakes off the bullshit. I'm teaching. He's learning. Right now I
think we're getting an "A-" in life. To that I say, “Fuck math.”
The middle darling and
mini-me is now 8. The child has zero filter and feels all the feelings.
He is fire. I didn't learn how to channel those feelings as a child, and
my early adulthood was so tumultuous because of it. I would never take any of
that back though, because those years provided the basis for nearly all of the
hysterically insane stories I now tell about myself. I still feel compelled to
teach him to lasso the emotions. I'm pretty sure I will have zero success because, like me, he already knows everything. It's a trip to look into a kid's
eyes and see your very own. He's so gregarious; everyone loves his personality.
He tricks people into thinking he's always smiling. I don't even mind that he
saves the explosions for me. He whistles like an old man, always reminding me
of my dad. I can't help but smile.
The littlest darling who
was not even two yet when Dave died, is now 5. His chubby cheeks are
finished, the dimples on the backs of his hands are gone, and with him I feel
it all slipped away....and I know I didn't extract every drop. This causes my
heart to feel injured. The lump in my throat starts to hurt. There’s no turning
back. He's got no memory of Dave, so he makes up his own. Out of desperation, I
allow it. Oddly it seems to affect him more, because he doesn't have the memories
to cling to like the other boys. When I finally started to date again, I
realized that his little heart was so desperate. The first time my
boyfriend entered my kitchen, little darling announced that we should go put
flowers on daddy's grave. A few days later my boyfriend fixed my dishwasher. To
my bewilderment, he did this with little darling perched on his shoulders. When
he left, baby darling kissed him and told him he loved him. I held my breath.
It was quite overwhelming and surprising, although I acted like I hardly
noticed. The boyfriend took it in stride. I was worried it would be too much. I
texted him later and said, "I know this is alot, all this baggage, all these
kids." His response? "We all have baggage, J. You don't get to be this age
without it, do you? I wouldn't care if you had 20 kids."
I
shan’t say more about the BF, except that he calls me his ‘enchantress’ and he
speaks French, softly in my ear. Is there really even anything else to know? Perhaps
one day I will tell him about the diary. Then I will immediately regret it. My
male friends assure me the diary would captivate any man. I say I shall be
judged in the here and now. His natural affinity for words and language is so
like my own, so I can only assume he would understand the creative thrill. We share
the same sarcastic humor as well. But I believe it is ill advised to hand over
the sarcastic musings of your alter ego on the first date. Or the hundredth
date. Or ever. I know in my heart that my happy ending exists. Never have I even considered that it’s not a
possibility. I exist. Therefore I know it does.
Oh for fucks sake
though, have I convinced you that we moved to this enchanted grassy knoll where little
dwarves do our laundry? I shall just throw in a scene from last week, so
that you'll be assured that in my absence from you we did not turn into some people
you would pin under the “muthafuckas to be like” category. (Listen, if you are new
to me and I just jolted you out of your chair…I curse to keep the pearl
clutchers away. I get nervous when too many people read this.)
Big darling was
conducting some business in the bathroom, with the door ajar about an inch. (I’ve
learned to resist any reference to the term ‘shit magnet, by the way. The universe
is LISTENING.) Little darling, who currently has a spitting 'issue', had just
spit in middle darling's face. Middle darling punched him in the back,
and a chase ensued. I happened upon them just outside the bathroom. The
two littles were screaming about the spit and the back-punch, and the big one
was displeased that the fracas was occurring too close to the bathroom door. By
this time the door had been pushed ajar further. I hastily decided that this
spit was the last straw, and the spitter would be taught a lesson. I grabbed
the little darling's head between my hands, and carefully positioned it in
front of middle darling's face. "Spit back at him!" I screamed. At
once all eyes stared back at me, perfectly round and wide. Time stood still. I
took note of the faces I could see. Big darling on the throne, in total shock
but with the corners of his mouth beginning to curl into a smile. Middle
darling, who at first thought he was in trouble. It took him more than a second
or two to process that I was commanding him to spit back in the little guy's
face. Then he too suppressed his smile as I watched him slowly gather the
saliva in his mouth. The little guy sensed what was coming and started to buck,
but I was holding him firmly. And then, BAM. Mostly on my hands, but his face
was still splattered.
I
still mostly have no clue what I'm doing. But my heart is pure and I'm
parenting these boys the best way I can. It's still a happy house. They break
something every day, it seems. They're messy. They exhaust me. But they've
grown to know and appreciate my limits. They know when to scatter and when to
hug and when to plant tender kisses on my tear stained cheeks cause I've just
had enough.
I’m
46 years old and I do feel like I finally know the secret. The secret is that
the world is your genie. It’s all yours for the taking. Visualize it, open your
heart to it, declare it and then receive it. Too often my life is a blur and I
can’t focus on anything. But it’s a big mistake. I know I need to slow my roll,
and so do you. There’s no better investment in our time.
Our
Christmas tree topper. We don’t have a star on top. I can’t find one I like.
This annoys big darling, the funny yet subtle one. Yes, it’s a sock.
