We are waiting for destiny. For a collective destiny that breaks into a million pieces of individual fate. For one answer that asks a billion questions. The dread, the waiting- it is as horrible and painful as the answer could be. Worse, because all of the possibilities paralyze us until we know.

We all must make our own way, and we offer each other support and protection from the intrusion of our loved ones, who all think they understand, who all think they know what we will need to do, where we should go, how to pick up the pieces. We also know that focusing on survival, while crucial, minimizes our loss. Our sorrow and pain. We understand that asking those questions is akin to inquiring about funeral arrangements before offering condolences.

If this road ends, I know which turn to make. I sit at the intersection, waiting. Shielding my eyes from the sun, trying to see as far down both paths as I can. Trying and failing to stay neutral, to prepare myself equally for either journey, using the endless details of both roads as a worry stone for my troubled mind.

I’m waiting. Waiting to know whether I should hold on tighter or let go completely. The strain of such an uncertain pose is difficult but not impossible. I try to hide the struggle beneath an opaque veil of dark humor; calm, casual, resigned. Sometimes when the light is just right, that veil is translucent and you can see through it.

What you’re looking at is my heart, soul and mind- my very will- trembling under the weight of uncertainty, approaching failure.

Just like everyone else that waits with me.

A family of the undead, an army of zombies united by our battle scars. The blood, sweat, tears and laughter we’ve shared. Bonded by an agony so intimate that the lines between the individual and the collective blend and blur until they are almost unrecognizable. Both despite and because of the possibility that our story has thirty different endings.

We’re waiting to find out.

I’ve long since been relieved of those duties, or anything pertaining to them, but these people are like Pavlov’s dogs, and every time they have some stupid question (how do I change my withholding? IT’S CALLED A W4. HOW DO YOU OPERATE HERE IN ADULT LAND? SHOULD I FOLLOW YOU TO THE BATHROOM AND WIPE YOUR ASS FOR YOU TOO), they come arunnin’ to the Finance department.

Normally, the venerable B is seated prettily at her desk, right outside my office like a devoted sentry. She’s nicer, and better at acting like she likes people, so they usually whine to her about their boring, silly problems instead of bothering me.

She’s out today, and in a horribly inconvenient juxtaposition, one of my least favorite people in the office is suffering a personal crisis of catastrophic proportion.

My reasons for not liking the guy are several:

- I once claimed a pretty Christmas cookie tin with a note that said “Catherine wants this tin”, which when said five times fast still doesn’t sound like “Catherine wants this freakazoid”, but that’s what he thought it meant when he cornered me in the break room to ask me why I didn’t just tell him how I felt.

- He has a cackle that resounds through our entire office. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and not in a good way.

- He usually cackles as he makes his way through the cube farm, telling everyone who will listen the same lame joke, so that by the time he gets to Marketing (one row south of us in Finance), I could fucking tell it FOR HIM.

- He used to punch me in the arm when we passed each other in the hall. Like I was a teenage boy or something.

- He’s just creepy, and he tells all of us how pretty we are all the time. Which should be a compliment that makes me happy, but whenever he does it, I just imagine him cuddling up to the company directory with a jar of Vaseline. ~shudders~

Anyway. Rumor has it that his marriage ended today. Which is very sad and unfortunate, and I never like to hear of a marriage failing, though it is my understanding that they were merely perpetually engaged (for tax reasons? alimony? child support?), which is slightly less romantic. However. My point is that I am by no means belittling the significance of his crisis.

I still don’t fucking like him, though. So when he came all red-rimmed eyes and wobbly chin to ask me about changing his direct deposit, I answered his question without inquiring further. His disappointment was apparent in the way he sulked off with his figurative (or maybe literal, it wouldn’t surprise me) tail between his legs. It was also apparent when he came back to my office ANOTHER FOUR TIMES to sniffle and ask the same questions.

Hey, asshat? Did I fall sobbing into your arms when my own marriage ended? Natch. I did not. Did I like you yesterday? No, I did not. Do I like you today? No, I do not. Chances for tomorrow? Not lookin’ good. I know you must have a support system back there in Nerdtown (these guys are so undesirable that I refuse to call them geeks, because, well, geeks are guys you might consider dating, and these are bald-mullet-virgins), so go boo-hoo at them.

I don’t fucking like you, and no amount of personal tragedy is going to override my distaste.

I will give you some advice, though…

That pointy weirdo creeper goatee is not going to help you with the ladies when you get back out on the market.

Just sayin.

I will be entirely too busy laying by the pool during the day and causing trouble at night to post here.

Last night, while I was packing, I tried to remember the last time I had a real vacation. A going somewhere just because not seeing family not camping not a long distance date not a business trip longer than a long weekend vacation.  I believe it was the beach trip of 2007.

Not only is this my first vacation in three years, and not only am I traveling with a bestie, but I am unbelievably over the moon heart aflutter excited to be meeting some absolutely fabulous faces whose hearts I already know.

This trip could not come at a better time. I need an escape. I need a distraction. I need a new point of travel reference that doesn’t include a big ol’ mystery that still haunts me at three in the morning. I need to not be a waswife, an employee, a homeowner, a excrazyfacesomethingorother, I need to not be Catherine for a little while. I need to spend a few days being a verybadcat.

Can you think of a better place to accomplish all of those things?

I can’t.

(many thanks to the illustrious B, who is so mired in sandal-searching, housekey-keeping, kitteh-foster-mom’ing and airport shuttling that she will probably be the happiest bestie of the three of us when our plane takes off…)

“well I don’t know, but I’ve been told
you never slow down, you never grow old
I’m tired of screwin’ up, tired of going down
tired of myself, tired of this town…”

-tom petty “mary jane’s last dance“

When you make sure I’ve eaten. When you take my panicked phone calls from random airports and take the time and effort to make sure I’m okay. When you hold me while I weep with a broken heart. When you get in between me and whatever is driving me crazy and making me angry. When you patiently and gently wipe away the black marks my size eight high heel leaves on our network printer. When you turn me around so I’m headed in the right direction again.

I’ve told you how much I admire your impeccable manners. The four course dinners. Your way of handing people and situations with lighthearted grace and style, even if that isn’t how you really feel. Your untouchable superior skills as a hostess.

I’m pretty sure I’ve also told you how beautiful you are; your porcelain skin, your willowy figure, the classic features of your face.

Today I want to make sure I tell you something I probably haven’t before.

I love you most when you’re bad. When you brat out all over the place. When you’re snarky and snappy and mean. When you are the one wailing and weeping in my arms. When you’re half crazy and can’t calm down. When you let people down (which isn’t too often).

My love and affection for the worst parts of you, the parts that you beat yourself up over, is every bit as fierce as my love for the best parts of you.

Because all of it together makes you who you are. Because those parts don’t make you a bad person, they make you human. They make you just like me. They give me a chance to give back to you, to give you the benefit of the doubt, to comfort you, to rein you in.

It is the worst parts of you, not the best parts, that earn my implicit trust. I can admit how I really feel and what I really think without worrying about diminishing your opinion of me. I don’t have to worry about needing you more than you need me. I can rest assured that we need each other.

Thanks for being there for me. Thanks for taking care of me. Thanks for being who you are- in totality. Thank you for letting me be there for and take care of you. That gift is every bit as precious as all of the things you are constantly doing for me.

I love you, Britters. Happy Birthday.

There’s something in the way she moves,
or looks my way or calls my name,
that seems to leave this troubled world behind.
And if I’m feelin’ down and blue,
or troubled by some foolish game,
she always seems to make me change my mind.

***

Every now and then the things I lean on lose their meaning, and I find myself careening,
into places that I should not let me go.
She has the power to go where no one else can find me,
yes and to silently remind me,
of the happiness and good times that I know.

-james taylor, “there’s something in the way she moves“

R and my hairdresser W are always chirping at me about the flat iron. R tells me all the time I should straighten my hair (she also tells me all the time that I am too loud and off color in public). Just in general sometimes, but mostly for special events. I don’t know that I’ve ever paid W a visit wherein she has not taken the flat iron to some section of my hair- this last time it was the long bangs she cut in (the point of which is to soften the librarian effect I get when I so often pull the mane into a ponytail or bun). These girls all but chase after me with the damn thing, waving it and beckoning me to sit and straighten.

I never do it. Well, I did it once. I have a flat iron. I have a curling iron. I have a hairdryer. I cannot remember the last time I used any of them.

It isn’t that I don’t care about my hair. To the contrary, I am always on the lookout for a new trick or product to define and retain my curls,  and when the mane misbehaves, I bemoan my defeat as I pull a ponytail holder out of my purse and pile it on top of my head.

There is a very specific reason that I never take the flat iron to my half-ass curly mane.

I love my hair. Even when I hate it, I love it still. It’s a part of me, it’s a portrayal (and a pretty accurate one) of my personality. Sometimes it falls right into place, sometimes it’s wild and unmanageable.  It does as it pleases, it looks at my silicone smoothers and my curl defining milks and laughs heartily; it goes on about its business as if I never even tried to tame it.

Using a hairdryer to blow it out, using a flat iron to straighten it, even using a curling iron to cheat on the sides where the curls fall first is just too much trouble. Causes too much damage. Makes my arms hurt. Takes too much time. I don’t even like the way it looks, really. It doesn’t look bad, but whenever I let someone take the flat iron to it, I always count the hours until I can wash it and bring back my difficult, naughty, haphazard curls.

Spending all that time and energy to fool the world into thinking I’m shiny and manageable and always fall perfectly into place just isn’t worth the effort. Especially if the truth comes out with one good washing. Better to just be honest, even if that means being messy and untamed, even if that means constantly falling short of perfect curls and ending up wild and undefinable.

I have made myself vulnerable, and I have been ridiculed. People have made bold statements of loyalty, of intention and affection. I chose to believe them. I chose to let their words and their past actions set my expectations for those relationships and their future behavior. In so doing, I chose to let them ridicule me; I allowed them space in my mind and heart, I gave them the power to humiliate, confuse and reject me. The consequences were crushing, to put it mildly.

In the warmth of the desert sun, in the safety of an no man’s land where I play the role of an extra and not a lead or supporting actress, I searched my soul for a solution. For some way to mitigate the pain and shame of being fooled and rejected without losing the light, love and joy of knowing, trusting and caring for my fellow human beings.

Turns out, there is none. Turns out that taking people at face value, that believing what they say, and trusting in their words is the risk we take in loving, or even entertaining the idea of love. It just so happens that you have to let someone in far enough to turn you into a monster of expectation, even if they are going to turn around and refuse to feed the monster they created without your prompting. To add insult to injury, they will hardly ever have the courage to entertain a mature discussion about the change in their intentions or affections; they will almost always leave you with a hungry monster and a painful mystery.

Some have advised me to trust less, to love less, to lower my expectations of people. Human nature certainly supports this course of action- we are all both good and evil, and we often hurt each other whether we intend to or  not, and we seldom have the courage to handle emotional situations with an ounce of grace, compassion and maturity. I have certainly created and neglected a few monsters of my own. There is wisdom in having lower expectations, in charging a higher price for real estate in my heart and mind.

That just isn’t who I am, though. Never has been. After all the heartache, after all the humiliation and wondering and waiting and hoping and crying and wishing for a simple explanation- thirty years worth- I find myself in the very same place. Heart wide open, with great expectations.

I’m sitting here, at my desk in the visitor’s cube in our sister office. Looking at the pretty purple flowers my friend surprised me with this morning. Giggling and lunching with the girls I went out with last night. Remembering the people I met on this trip, enjoying the people I know and love more and more with every visit. Missing a dear friend who recently left the desert for his true homeland. Looking forward to my morning flight from Atlanta to Asheville, to watching the Appalachians rise from the Piedmont and catching my first glimpse of home. Fielding instant messages, emails, calls and texts from the people I know I can truly count on in this world. Marveling at the contrast between people who make grand statements that almost always disappoint and the people who show their affection in beautiful tiny ways- with english muffins and pretty purple flowers, by making a phone call to see if I got home okay and simply saying “I care about you, you’re a great girl, you deserve a lot”.

It’s not a bad place to be, on the whole.

And yes, I do deserve a lot. Because I am a great girl. So maybe, just maybe, if I keep my heart wide open, I shall have it someday.

I’m sitting here, fudge all ready to take to the neighbors tomorrow, presents under my tree (thank you Auntie!), and of course, Mama already had me open her boxes and coo over all the contents. The best thing she sent was a water filter, the worst was a calculator that didn’t work and had someone else’s name on it (that has Daddy’s taste written all over it!).

People were worried that this Christmas would be hard for me, since this is my first Christmas as a single girl in over a decade. Honestly, though? I’m loving it.

My house is clean and decorated. I have fudge for the neighbors and the besties. Stocking stuffers were so much fun to pick out, and I couldn’t help but get myself a few things. I do believe I’m attending a get together tomorrow night, but even if that falls through, I have a few yummy things to snack on and plenty of Christmas goodness on my DVR. Christmas morning, I’ll actually have some presents to open, and then it’s time to get ready to have company on Saturday.

I won’t lie, it would have been nice to break in my mistletoe. There isn’t an emptiness or even a loneliness to my first Christmas on my own, though, just lots of fun, great memories and a ton of love.

Merry Christmas, ya’ll. I hope Santa is good to you!

I bought the wreath plain and wired everything in there. The birds were tricky little bitches, but I love them:

B made these for us. Love.

Now taking applications for kiss thieves.

Okay, here’s the tree:

I adore the pine cones. I adore them so much I bought three more containers of them after I hung the ones I had. Next year, I’d like to have acorns, and apples and pears and snowflakes. But no glittered up flocked out crap. I’m just not that kind of girl.

You are an incredible woman. We tease you about being the alpha, about your bossiness, and I know that sometimes we make you self-conscious. I hope you understand that I’m so very proud to be your friend. Aside from our bond, aside from what we’ve been through together, aside from the love I hold for you in my heart- you make me proud to call you my best friend because of who you are as a person.

I admire the hell out of you. I love the way that you accept nothing less from this world than what you want and deserve. This is such a major part of who you are that it extends to everyone you love, and I love you all the more for refusing to watch me settle for less, for calling me on point, for holding me to the highest standard. I admire your courage- the things that you go out into the world to do- your lust for life takes my breath away sometimes.

It drives me crazy when you fuss over and doubt your appearance. My darling, you are an incredibly beautiful woman. Your gorgeous blue eyes, classic features and warm smile are more powerful than any outfit you can put together. Despite what you may think, every bit of your hard work shows in your figure. You seethe beauty.

Life has gotten much harder and more complicated since we first started this friendship. I hate that for us, but I will tell you, with a conviction that rises deep from my soul:

I can’t think of a better person to walk through the fire with.

I love you, girl. Wishing you the very best of days, and the brightest future possible.

The venerable R and I have been friends for years now. It hasn’t always been easy or pretty, and I love her most for not giving up on me and being the kind of person I couldn’t give up on either. Her friendship is precious to me; we’ve shared a lot of victories and defeats together. I would tell you more, but then we would have to kill you. Seriously. Beyond her friendship, I’m grateful to know her as a person. She is strong and assertive (that’s why we call her the alpha!), smart as a whip, and fiercely loyal. She’s just plain fun to be around, and she can make one hell of a monkey tail. Some people believe that you have a friend that you call when you’re already in trouble, and another friend you call when you want to cause some trouble. Those people don’t know Rach. I love her like a sister, and I know where I would be without her. Wintering in Screwedtown and summering in Boringville. In Mom jeans.

B. Oh, B. She is so supportive. I don’t just mean that she listens to me and encourages me and asks the right questions. I mean that she helps hold me up.  I would be a disorganized, unintentionally anorexic mess wearing a permanent layer of pet fur and missing a thumbnail without her. She is the fortress around my office, fielding requests, fending off the unwanteds and just generally furthering our agenda. B is always there with the lint mitt and extra kleenex, organic yogurt smoothies, apple fritters or an apple wrapple. When my manager asked me which of my employees I would take into battle, I uttered her name without reservation or pause. He meant professionally, but that’s only half the story.  Also, her taste is impeccable, and she can be credited with introducing me to such things as cucumber sandwiches, the laughing cow, and velvet sin truffles.  If she made $20 every time I came to her cursing, crying or both with a big messy clusterfuck to be dealt with, she could retire.

I lost a lot of things this year, but I also gained a bestie. We’ve been mutual friends of R’s for years, and friends in our own right for quite awhile, but I really got to know her this year. I admire the hell out of her for her sense of balance. She is disciplined but fun as hell, understanding and compassionate but firm in her opinions, kind and generous but not willing to be taken advantage of. She’s given me some excellent advice, held me while I cried my eyes out, guided me through unfamiliar territory and opened up her heart and her home to me.  She is beautiful inside and out and smart as hell. If I am hot and smart enough to be a pain in the ass, she could be a living terror. She isn’t though, and that’s what I love about her most.

My besties come with an added bonus: their men. These guys are always looking out for me in all the little ways that brothers take care of their sisters. They check my oil, run my codes, stand in line with me for ice cream, voice their support with few words but loads of warmth and firmness, weedwack my yard, and look out for me in general when they can. I adore them, unless the besties are mad at them, and then they suck and must do penance.

These people are my glue. They are my best memories. They make up half of my emergency contacts.  They are incredible individuals and awesome friends.

They are my family, and I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have them, each and every one.