Daddy took me to the park Sunday afternoon for a walk along the bay. Every step I mindfully delay to match his pace is a tiny death. His excitement in discovering that most of the ice fishing takes place within reasonable walking distance from the parking lot amounts to so many tears shed later, in the dark, on top of the sea created from his concern that he might not be strong enough to pull himself from the water if the ice gave way beneath him.

The night his mother died, I held my father while he cried. Just he and I, sitting in the dark, the smell of liquor heavy in the air. He looked at me with indescribable anguish, whispered “I’m an orphan again” and crumpled into a quiet and dignified weeping.

At sixteen, I had the sense to be heartbroken for him and honored that he allowed himself a moment of unfettered grief in my presence. I did not have the sense to be absolutely petrified at the hard reality: this man that still seemed part machine would age, himself.

That fear would be borne some fifteen years later, when my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, when my Uncle and I clung to each other and wept for his mother, when young and tragic death forced itself upon my family like a stain.

Those experiences created a manic rage, a choking desire, words creeping up in my throat, begging for air, for all the volume I can muster- warnings from the rooftops about the fleeting nature of life, about the enduring power of love, about what is important and what is not, and why oh why do we waste so much time on meaningless things when it all goes by so quickly?!

This is precisely why my father no longer grows a winter beard; his whiskers are nearly all white now, and I pleaded with him not to make me stare down his mortality. He lost another of his best friends on Christmas Eve, and I finally acquiesced this weekend, because I can no longer pretend that I won’t walk the Earth without him someday.

I thought long and hard today about why that’s so goddamned scary. I grew up with the constant reminder that he was preparing me to survive without him. I love my mother dearly; I cherish my time with her and worry for her health, I can sense the heaviness of losing her, but there is no cold, hard fear, no tearful three in the mornings, no nightmares, no soul-quaking hollowness.

What am I so afraid of? What am I losing that I cannot live without?

Like most good answers, especially at three in the morning, it’s sickeningly, stunningly clear.

My father sees, understands and appreciates me on a level no one else does because I let him. I make myself vulnerable, I throw open the doors of my heart and let him in to tinker around and sweep up, to rearrange things on the shelves and leave me a list of things to watch for.

It isn’t because he’s never let me down, or hurt me deeply, or temporarily turned me away. Even when our trust was thin and brittle, even when time and maturity called me to set my own boundaries, I kept faith in his love. It hasn’t always been easy, and it hasn’t always seemed wise, but it has always, always been worth it.

I’m petrified that my ability to love with such reckless abandon will die with him.

Now I just need to figure out what to do about that.

Impatience, a need for control, general insecurity- I’ve suffered all these faults, and surely will again- but uncertainty provokes something within me when none of those issues is at play.

Even when a situation can only end two ways, either could be considered advantageous, and there is a known time frame for resolution, I’m still a wreck.

Faith would contend that everything happens for a reason, taking comfort in the “rightness” of either outcome. Logic would dictate focusing elsewhere until there is enough information to form a response.

I am not a man of faith, nor a man of logic. I am a woman with a healthy dose of skepticism for the all too common practice of relying too heavily on either.

My intuition is my north star; I close my eyes, ask myself what the answer is and listen very carefully and quietly for the feeling to roll over me.

The glaring weakness of this strategy is that pesky habit one has of favoring their preference; we tend to confirm our own desires. An emotional stake in the matter at hand clouds my intuition, and acute awareness of the possibility that my compass is miscalibrated leaves me dizzy with doubt.

I paid a hope tax to balance out the entry.

The things I wanted most I refused to believe in, my own little fucked up emotional insurance policy against disappointment and shame. My intuition written off to reconcile my desire and fear.

Which isn’t altogether a flawed formula; it simply attempts to account for the failings of human nature and reduce the risk that my trademark intensity brings to the use of deep knowing. Admirable goals, all.

It’s awfully exhausting though, all that hoping-not-hoping, knowing-not-knowing, wanting-not-wanting wears a girl out and thins her focus. It’s unproductive, particularly when I’m right more often than I’m wrong.

There isn’t a disappointment I cannot bear; all of my worst nightmares came true, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. Things I wanted too badly to believe in happened effortlessly, and things that seemed safely logical evaporated like summer rain on hot pavement. My emotions, thankfully, do not influence the workings of the universe.

So. A girl can hope, right?

Right.

Only pollen with enough genetic variety to produce healthy offspring will result in reproduction, which is why most plants require cross-pollination. Fruit borne of their own pollen alone would produce weak stock, vulnerable to blight and sterility, so a molecular defense exists to encourage only successful genetic combinations.

At breakfast the other morning, Wendy pointed out a forsythia bush on the edge of the parking lot. It was covered in half-open blossoms, spent before they could unfurl. I wept for it later, the poor sweet thing, doing its humble best to send fairy dust into the world, expending all that effort and energy desperately pushing flowers into a dormant, barren landscape. Tricked by unseasonably warm temperatures into performing for empty rows of hard metal seats, with nary a honeybee to carry its whisper, and only silence on its carpels.

Nature, for all her exquisite wisdom, delivers such cruelly objective consequences for her creatures’ timing errors. When the blooms open at just the right time, a pollinator that favors that plant and its best genetic crosses will visit just long enough to dance the timeless waltz of creation on its petals, leaving dreams and carrying wishes away on their furry legs and antennae.

The promise of fruit is made that very moment; if the plant is given enough sunshine, water and fresh air but is left otherwise undisturbed, the next generation will push forth from the stems, sent from deep within the all roots and veins, cell by cell, to make new life in the soil below.

The forsythia will most surely find itself frostbitten, frozen over, flowers encased in a coat of icy shards that will cut them to shreds upon thawing, leaving a pile of rotted mush to seep into its roots, inevitably restarting the cycle of life, birth and hope under the ground. Another chance to get it right.

My heart ached to impart some comfort, to reassure it that the secret workings of the universe are as impersonal as gravity: when the season and conditions are right the magical becomes the inevitable, the soil is richened for its failed effort, time and wisdom produce fruit sweetened by experience and patience. Gratitude for its timely reminder seeped from the marrow of my stiff and tired hips: buds and berries set on their own time, in their own way, thriving on a lack of human interference in the magic of nature.

It will have learn on its own the difference between January and March, and the futility of blooming at the first signs of warmth instead of having enough faith to wait for spring, that opening is just a start. In its struggle, it will discover that the beauty of its blossoms are just a vessel for its essence, which lays in wait for that familiar ancient whisper to awaken it to fruition.

I smiled as I wiped the tears from my cheeks, though, because I know the joy of mastering those lessons: an entire existence dripping with life and sustenance from every stem and branch, with roots enough to anchor and nourish, and wishes given flight on the wings of bees.

While I excel at feigning coyness, I’m completely incapable of playing hard to get, and furthermore, it seems an awfully unstable foundation to begin anything. At what point does one stop attempting to engender behavior and begin to evaluate behavior? I don’t want to know what I can trick a man into, I’m trying to find out what he’s inspired to. The latter is sustainable, and the former is an exhausting way to live.

A better plan: actually being hard to get. Ideally, just hard to keep, but that’s akin to walking a tightrope. This is the point where one suggests having a full, rich life- accurate but worthless advice to the overly eager. The only cure for desperation is an abundant dose of one’s own medicine. When another human being slowly tightens the noose of pressure and expectation around your windpipe just because you were nearby, had the appropriate organs and an assortment of vague redeeming qualities? That will do it.

Strategy is all about power plays and control games, and if I’ve learned a thing about love relationships, it is that one ought not search for a worthy opponent. In exchange for being straightforward and direct, I expect my boundaries to be honored, and breaches or passive-aggression are red flags of disrespect.

Ideally, I’d like to share my life with someone who actually wants to work together towards a shared vision. I still have mountains to climb in my creative and professional life, my moderate chronic wanderlust occasionally flares to ragingly acute. Being expected to concede my interests to someone else’s agenda fills me with a woozy panic that makes my chest tight and my tongue sharp. Better that he has goals and interests and friends and things too, so that he doesn’t feel betrayed by my need for solitude and the frequent impromptu adventure. This leaves a very nice space for everyone to breathe and grow.

It also makes me sound very strong and independent, which I absolutely am, for a girl…

I require a certain standard of care before I’ll invest trust. Because I’m a delicious little piece of psycho pie, the loving gets in front of the trusting sometimes, and I respond very poorly to the risk exposure. It makes me hyper-vigilant; just like the corporate executives that called every hour on the hour for income statement estimates after a particularly fruitful or trying month. Except that I know (usually) that the hyper-vigilance hurts the cause, so I withdraw to keep my fruity filling hidden. I want to see what happens without my interference, which is likely to be heavy-handed from that mindset, anyway.

So when Harry races through the streets of New York to tell Sally he loves her, when Big finds Carrie in Paris and whispers “you’re the one, you were always the one”, I’m both disgusted and delighted.

Furthering the fantasy that an emotionally unavailable man is going to suddenly open like a lotus flower and pull your sweet ass into the blinding white light of eternal happiness is just pointless and cruel. I’m of the school of thought that no man is emotionally unavailable, really, they are just not emotionally available to you. Watch the right woman come along- they drop like flies. I’ve seen the mightiest bachelors melt like warm molasses before my very eyes.

Still, what gives me sillygirlheart about the dramatic reunion isn’t new year’s eve tuxedoes or romantic speeches, it isn’t the pink fluffy skirt or the streets of Paris. It’s that unequivocal surrender, the admission that even though love is messy and challenging, they can’t imagine a life without the other person in it.

Those moments don’t usually come in dramatic fashion. They slip in under the door, or through an open window, and settle gently over the bed like an extra blanket. You don’t notice it as much as you notice yourself stretching out in the newfound warmth, and suddenly that twinge of stiffness in your leg puts a smile on your face as you remember why you’re so cozy.

The world is so big now; the economic model that kept men, women and marriages small is so much dust. Chris Ryan speaks of “facing the sky” in Sex at Dawn, that phase in a relationship when you find yourself halfway around the ferris wheel, recommending that couples negotiate boundaries and rules through honest discussion and mutual respect. His context is monogamy and traditional marriage, but its usefulness far exceeds that single aspect of relationships.

The most imperative quality in a partner and a relationship is the willingness to live and grow together, to carve out a bond that gives two people security and freedom. Someone who sees life and love as a constant process of facing the sky, over and over again, who senses commitment as a beginning instead of an ending.

Happy endings make lovely fairy tales for little girls, but I want a happy beginning.

Certainly, my mother ensured that the Christmas tree burst forth with mountains of gifts on Christmas morning, all painstakingly wrapped in pretty paper and mile upon mile of pigtailed ribbon. My childhood Christmases were nothing short of magical, even after I recognized her familiar script on Santa’s gift tags.

The weeks leading up to Christmas morning, however, were entirely about love, kindness and charity. We baked endless cookies, to be delivered to neighbors and damn near every staff member at school by yours truly, a personal thank you from Mama to any soul that ever looked out for her kids.

We bought the softest, warmest gloves and hats for my elementary school’s “mitten tree”, and she made sure that I understood the heartbreaking connection between its purpose and my classmates who were carefully sent to the library for recess: their parents couldn’t even afford proper clothing for the Michigan winters. I hoped that my contribution to that tree would have them sledding and slinging snowballs with the rest of us in the new year.

It wasn’t until high school, when I got involved with Junior Civitan that I really understood the desperation and sorrow behind the mitten tree, the canned food drives, and the wish lists from social services. I met an angry single mother that hissed insults at us as we unloaded a full Thanksgiving dinner onto her kitchen counters, and an elderly couple living in a tin shack with dirt-packed floors. It frightened and saddened me indeliably to truly understand the depth and breadth of my blessings.

A few short years later, I was finishing some last-minute shopping on Christmas Eve when the oil light lit up my dashboard. Panicked, I pulled into an oil change place and prayed that someone would at least be around to sell me a few quarts of oil for my old, dying car. There was a guy in the garage, he’d come by to pick something up he’d forgotten the night before. He filled my engine and put a case of oil in my trunk, with strict instructions to add a quart every time I put gas in it, and refused to take even the money for the two or so quarts I could afford.

Just a few years ago, a coworker was distraught over a mistake in her checkbook register that meant she couldn’t afford the big gift she planned on for her son. B and I hardly even had to exchange looks; we both put a few twenties in an envelope and slipped it into her inbox, unnoticed. We were eventually discovered, unwittingly, and I found myself staring into a pair of big brown eyes full of guilt, shame and disbelief. She wanted to know why we were compelled to fix her “stupid” mistake, and she wanted to “make it right” when she could.

“Because we’ve all made that mistake in our checkbooks. Because your kid deserves that wide-eyed gasp I always had. Because I have it to spare. Because that’s how my Mama raised me. Because it made my heart light and happy. Because I love you. Because this is what Christmas is really about, and don’t you dare give a penny of it back.”

We wept in each other’s arms.

She offered it to me later, driven by the hopelessness behind my eyes, and probably the knowledge that B was helping me sneak the space heater out of the lobby at night and out of the trunk of my car in the morning. I still refused, because forty dollars wasn’t even close to solving my problems and because I’m so damn prideful sometimes.

This year, I haven’t had an opportunity to perform a significant act of kindness, so I’ve decided to settle for sending tidings of comfort and joy to people that have made my life so much sweeter. I’d like to start with you, whoever you are. If you’re reading these words, you’ve encouraged me to keep writing, and in so doing, you’ve compelled me to live and love better. Your silent witness casts a soft, moon-lit glow on the path that leads me home. Thank you.

Merry Christmas, y’all.

The shadows call with their siren song, offering refuge from those impervious souls shocked, frustrated and saddened by smudges they cannot scrub clean. The pressure so ironically generated by holidays designed to inoculate against the void is thick and heavy with guilt and shame. Isolation’s seductive protection draws us further into the clear, sharp stillness until tears freeze on cheeks and aching gasps cut voice from vapor.

Frostbite settles in, and anything but a slow, gentle thawing scalds. Even that means relinquishing the safety in numbness, the relief hiding beneath pale pink skin. Warming by the fire seems a foolish pleasure; a painful reminder of the cold in fleeting contrast. Besides, someone might notice a shiver in the glow of those embers.

That’s the nature of darkness. Drawing poor, good hearts into an emptiness that folds over onto itself eternally. The blackest of psychic black holes, trapping everything in a nothingness that is only strengthened by resistance.

So I won’t try to coax you towards the light. I won’t insist that you find contentment, pleasure and gratitude in the stunning clarity of the winter sky, or whatever shelters you from the fierce northwestern wind that slices bone deep. You won’t find me standing over your dark places with a wire brush and a stiff jaw.

Still, perhaps you’d like someone to sit with you, in a chilly and dimly-lit room, with a mug of something to take the edge off. Someone who can see the flowers and fruit of spring waiting beneath your frozen soil, someone to clasp your icy hand in hers without wincing. If you need someone who can brave the darkness with you, or just breathe a contented sigh when you grasp a little tighter or worry her palm with your thumb?

I’m right here.

Sure, she had a smart mouth, broke the occasional rule, and was prone to emotional outbursts and displays of temper. She sometimes suffered an inability to accept a perceived injustice, and working so hard at being a good girl gave her a sense of entitlement. She had her resentment squirreled away in a savings account, to be retained as righteous indignation when she had her heart set on something that never materialized. Cath could be quite a handful in those moments, and her Mama likened her to a girl from a nursery rhyme:

There once was a girl with a curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid.

Cath’s parents were trying to teach her that life isn’t fair. They wanted her to learn to accept defeat gracefully, and to treat others well. She had to learn that one does the right thing for their own satisfaction, and not to gain favor or reward.

Somewhere, most likely at the intersection of life isn’t fair and you reap what you sow in the world, she misinterpreted the meaning behind the message.

Being a good girl means meeting others’ expectations, but you have no right to your own expectations. If you get what you want, it’s because you’re a good girl, and if you don’t get what you want, too bad- good girls are grateful for what they have.

Aren’t you grateful for everything we’ve given you?

For the next thirteen years of my life, I was a bad girl. Cat started drinking, sneaking cigarettes, doing drugs, going out with older guys, skipping school, speeding and generally doing whatever she wanted, fuck allwhat you thought of it. Her Daddy cured her of that her sixteenth year- he taught her that appearing to be a good girl was what counted, and that she could be as bad as she wanted if she didn’t get caught. He showed her that following the little rules made it easier to break the big ones.

Cat picked that up quickly, and she excelled at acting like a good girl and being a bad girl when no one was looking. She met a man who prided himself on that very same thing, and they fell in love. They were very happy most of the time; save his occasional failure to meet her expectations.

When she threw a fit, he gently explained to her that she wanted too much from him, more than anyone deserved, probably because her Daddy hit her and her Mama was closer to her sister. It was okay, though, because he loved her even though she was bad for being angry when he was cold or disrespectful.

Would I be here if I didn’t really love you? You’re just crazy. The way you depend on me is bad; I can’t be your everything. You need a life of your own.

She knew he was right, she was always bad that way, wanting more than she deserved, not merely gracefully accepting what she was given in exchange for being a good girl. He was right, she was bad, and she was so very grateful that he loved her anyway. So what if he was bad sometimes too, if he made her feel bad, it was her fault, for not just loving him anyway, for putting up with her. She loved him too well to expect the same in return.

Ever so slowly, she built a life of her own. Cat snagged an incredible professional opportunity, she made friends, she even started college. They bought a cute little house in the middle of nowhere, and she started to believe that her life might turn out better than she ever dreamed.

Once again, she had a great deal of responsibility for her age. At twenty-six, she was a wife, a homeowner, the Controller of a multi-million dollar company, and a student. All of these roles required suppressing that bad little girl. She was constantly belittled and criticized for her passion, intensity, honesty, and the clumsy new way she stood up for herself.

That’s when I became a verybadcat. The blog was first; verybadcat needed a place safe from criticism to start writing again, to tell the stories no one wanted told, a container for her badness. All those pieces and parts of her that were not honored and accepted off the page. Her deepest fears, darkest secrets, secret dreams and wishes. She was astounded to find that she developed a following, that people who didn’t know the good girl loved verybadcat. Twitter allowed her to communicate with those folks in real time.

Her life was finally full and fruitful, she gained confidence, which was just what the wasbund always said he wanted. Unfortunately, what seemed ideal in theory lost luster in practice; the career, the social life, the night classes and homework, and all of that fucking around on the Internet took time and attention away from him. She wasn’t content to sit on the shelf till he was inclined to take her down and dust her off. At that same time, his full and fruitful life began the agonizing process of unraveling.

The addition of financial stress and marital discord to her already demanding life left her with no room to move. Anything she wanted for herself: time, energy, recognition, space, respect, and especially love or money, she had to steal from the life she built. The guilt of resenting all of the pressure was crushing. Everything was a secret.

Her precarious financial position was a secret from her employer, because admitting that you are cold and hungry at night isn’t a good idea when you hold a key financial position in an organization. Her professional success threatened and intimidated her chronically unemployed husband. Her friends almost knew how bad things were, but she alternated venting between wholly separate social circles to keep the depth and breadth of misery a secret too. Most everything was a secret from her family.

She was two people then. Catherine did the payroll, and verybadcat kited personal checks to get to work the week before payday. Catherine made good grades and enjoyed being back at school, but sometimes verybadcat just let everyone think she was in class, so she could have her brain to herself for a few hours. Catherine felt badly about leaving her husband home alone with no food or heat for decadent business dinners, but verybadcat snickered over it after a few cocktails.

This arrangement worked beautifully until both girls went alone for a secret long weekend in Ohio to mourn her last living grandparent, followed shortly by a week in Atlanta to help her baby sister bury her first love and witness with abject horror the effects of chemotherapy on her previously strong and healthy mother. All of that mortality shattered the illusion that there was room in one life for two girls- because she had felt the precious fleeting nature of this life, and because it occurred to her that the collision of all of those secrets would have made her own funeral apocalyptic.

They both decided that Catherine would stay and verybadcat had to go, since Catherine was a good girl and verybadcat was selfish and shameful.

It didn’t work out that way. One after another, the expectations Catherine had to meet fell away, and more people came to know both girls. Suddenly, verybadcat found herself single and starting a business. Catherine couldn’t let go. She needed more than ever to prove she was a good girl, but for the first time in her entire life, there was no one there to define what that meant.

Picking up where her experience left off, she made a list that included just about anything that made her too happy. Surely she didn’t deserve those things; every mistake, every failure, every rejection, every missed opportunity was proof that she was just a broken piece of trash that snuck her way into a place in the world far beyond her worth. Catherine ran behind verybadcat with a clipboard, counting up demerits and doling out punishments in the form of deprivation. She labored tirelessly to atone for verybadcat’s constant self-indulgence.

On Friday morning, Catherine filled a page with evidence of unworthiness easily before noon. She couldn’t get to the punishment, though, because verybadcat was solving her problems by helping beloved friends solve their problems, who in turn made her own solutions better. Catherine tried to calculate the cost of the love and support she was receiving, and fretted about the total deprivation required to even it out.

She had almost finished cleaning out the kitchen cabinets Friday night when it hit her.

There are no more secrets. There are no more outside expectations. The people who love me the most are the people who know me the best. The world, this world, my world finally needs me in whole. There is no good girl, no bad girl, no Catherine, and certainly no verybadcat. There is just me, in all my flawed perfection, essential to the whole and lacking nothing essential.

Just like the integral cat.

Winter serves an important purpose in nature; temperate plants require dormancy. The soil rests, slowly soaking in the snow and leaf litter that will fuel the march of lime green up the ridges in early April. Even tropical plants react to less sunlight in their growth cycles. Without a period of reduced nutrients, growth is slow and weak in prime growing months.

While the necessity of higher utility bills, hindered transportation, imposed isolation, snow and ice removal and inhospitable patio-drinking conditions is certainly debatable, there is value in that struggle.

My first winter alone tested my strength and will. I often thought I was warring with an angered mother nature, or an attempt from the universe to pry me from that little house I loved so much and worked so tirelessly to keep. I muddled through that season and most of the following winter before I realized the war was internal.

Nature merely did what it has always done, in its own time and grace, and didn’t ask my permission. I could accept my circumstances and rise to the occasion (which I managed most of the time), or curse my misfortune through chattering teeth. Relying on my ability to keep the wood burner running and plan for the occasional week at home alone never predicated my survival.

At most, it guarded my pride and prevented me from having to admit defeat and ask my neighbors for help. That first winter, I feared for my very life; I found strength and courage in battle through the petrifying realization that if I failed, I might freeze to death, starve, or at the very least, destroy my home.

The next year, my sister and I suffered overlapping illnesses and neither could manage to go fetch the few end pieces of the last cord on the hill, which wouldn’t have been enough to chase the chill from the walls. It took three days longer than we expected to have another cord delivered, and we were both sick and cold, but managing well.

My neighbor noticed that my chimney had gone silent, and probably snuck a peek at my dwindling supply of firewood. He loaded a week’s worth of seasoned walnut into the basement, and stayed to chat just long enough to see us get a fire caught before apologizing for the size and heft of the pieces on his way out the door. He’d split it last year thinking only of his own ability to handle them.

He won my undying gratitude that day, and I paid for that firewood with my romanticized and melodramatic perspective on my struggle to keep myself warm. Later in the year, when considering my options, it served as a reminder. My support network would not stand to see me suffer, and how independent is a girl if the insists on maintaining a precarious existence that compels her people to fret and intervene?

I’ve always loved winter; the ice skating, the scarves, hot cocoa, cuddling, the smell of wood smoke and fir trees, the pale-faced, pink-cheeked girl in the mirror after a few runs in the sled or a snowball fight. Frosted bare branches against icy blue-grey skies and the howl of a frosty wind. Dreading something I once treasured and missed intensely while living in Atlanta’s mild climate grew tiresome, and I’m quite eager to recapture that old appreciation.

Perhaps the raw and direct nature of my honesty in social media creates the perception of crisis or calamity. Quite the opposite is true. I learned long ago that denying my deepest fears and the worst of my emotional weather its voice only drives me further into madness; rage and self-loathing turned inward as punishment for my weakness.

Giving them life here and on twitter, shining the light of solidarity and community on my darkest darkness is what built the life I currently live. The cast and audience of my story have overlapped; what was once a fairly solid wall has crumbled to dust. That vulnerability is even harder now as a result, and there have been moments in which I questioned the value of such incredible transparency.

Still, my honesty and intensity brought me this far, and the siren song of expression has long since become a calling I cannot ignore. Learning how to honor the dignity of others while asserting my own truth encourages me to lessen the chasm between reality and emotional perception. Which is an ideal exercise for a woman consistently referred to as a force of nature.

When my weather turns foul, or the leaves drift loose from their branches and my personal landscape spends a few months under a hard frost, I do not fear my ability to survive those harsh conditions. I know I will endure; I always have. I’ve weathered enough physical and psychic trauma to ruin a person, and here I remain, steadily determined to love and understand as much of this life as possible. Even if it means admitting my internal battle against fear and bitterness. I confess to my defeats willingly because I know the front will pass, I know that spring will come.

I may suffer a bit of melodrama in my discontent, but I know when the gnashing of teeth subsides and my tears have tried, I’ll do the sensible thing. I will realize that taking any weather as a personal attack is the result of the self-centered expectation that nature should attend to my whims, rather than accepting my humble but lovely place in the universe and learning as much as I can. I will bundle up and carry on.

Will you?

Stop that, already. I know, I know, your heart has had more than a trouncing or two, and you’ve broken a few hearts yourself. All logical evidence points to certain crushing defeat, and at three in the morning you take bets with yourself on when and how it will end. Then you realize that not only have you reconciled with pursuing something, but you are betting against yourself. Do you laugh, or cry? I always try to laugh, and occasionally I fail.

The human mind abhors a vacuum almost as much as the human heart, and this compels one towards continuous autopsy of failed love. The value of that exercise begins where we examine our own mistakes and lessons and ends with an allocation of blame. Even despite betrayal, dishonesty or malicious intent.

I think the biggest secret to life and love is the subtle but powerful choice to focus on stewardship over striving. We desire love, luxury,  self-actualization and grace so intensely that we too often forget how little control we have over the form we receive them in.

If the purpose of one’s life is to make an examined and constant effort to be a better steward of everything the universe offers, we are in the mindset to receive all we seek with humility, gratitude, and worthiness. It’s when we decide that we have a cosmic claim check for something in our coat pocket that our focus becomes collecting our due.

“I’ll pick you up at Baggage Claim”.

<shudders>

Sorry, cupcake. What you’ve got there is a cosmic raffle ticket.

You might not draw the specific prize you had your eye on, but everyone goes home with something. What you make of it is entirely up to you, and you can re-enter the cosmic raffle anytime you want, though there may be some opportunity cost involved.

I think so long as we are true to ourselves and treat others with respect and dignity whenever possible, we’ll all win eventually.

The prize is the experience, the lesson, the deepening of our hearts and the widening of our perspectives.

We do our best loving when we seek these things, rather than striving for attention and affection.

So go ahead. Believe. If you can’t believe in love just yet, start with believing in your own ability to grow and learn.

I just wanted to remind you: you have to play to win.

ugly ducklings don’t turn into swans
and glide off down the lake
whether your sunglasses are off or on
you only see the world you make

-bonnie raitt “thing called love”

A warm-weather comforter would be lovely- something with a botanical print, or maybe a floral, if the flowers were tiny.

My travel schedule for 2012 is coming along nicely, and it would be so wonderful to have a few things that make it easier. I need something to carry my jewelry in, something that zips and fits easily into my purse. I only carry a few precious pieces, and I want to keep it with me if my carry on bag is checked at the gate. It should be soft enough for my pearls, please. I could also use shoe bags or boxes- something that protects my clothes from my shoes, and my shoes from my clothes. Some of those travel-sized bottles would be awesome. I like the ones that are squeezable and prefer pull-tops to push-tops. Target has the best I’ve seen. Travel-sized makeup brushes would also be lovely.

Circular knitting needles might help me consume some of my vast yarn collection. I’m low on needle caps and those big metal things you use to take unfinished projects off the needles without undoing your work. I do a lot of taking unfinished things off of my needles.

My sister would be especially grateful if I found a few full slips under the tree- a light one and a dark one- because her campaign to get me to wear something under my dresses is consistently foiled by a lack of options.

Something that boils water in a fireplace without letting all the moisture up the chimney would be very helpful in reconciling my love for a roaring fire with dry, unhappy sinuses. Plus, you’d be helping me maintain my youthful complexion.

There’s a windowbox herb garden in my future, and I’m still obsessed with growing strange things in glass containers. A seedling mat would further both of those endeavors. Wildflower and herb seeds, charcoal and maybe even some lilac root would be awesome. There are things that grow here that also grow in the Midwest, but I can’t find them easily this far south.

We’re working on a household project, and I can’t explain, but fine-tip dry erase markers would blow it wide open.

Spin pins- those corkscrew bobby pins- are addictive.

I miss my adding machine. Sometimes there just isn’t any substitute for running a tape.

A small clutch or two in black or brown, something that also has a thin shoulder strap, would prove useful. I love my baggalini, but it doesn’t do anything for a cocktail dress.

I haven’t lost my affinity for sweaters, pens, coffee and dark chocolate hot cocoa. You might also be interested to know I’ve gained indirect access to an employee discount at Old Navy, so gift cards are magical there.

Should you find that I’ve been an extra-good girl this year, and want to share some of your Christmas magic?

You could top off my Ipad fund, though I probably won’t wait till Christmas to spend it, or contribute to next year’s Bloggers in Sin City trip. I certainly wouldn’t complain if I found a Cannondale Quick 4 hybrid bicycle under the tree. That Delta Sky Club membership would ease the sting of my occasional standby failures…

These two things are probably outside of your jurisdiction, but if you’re looking to prove a point, send my Uncle down here for a visit and leave a long list of interesting and well-funded clients in my stocking.

I’ll leave your cookies and bourbon in the kitchen nook. Don’t mind the cats.

love,

me