Christmas

December 25, 2012
11:54 PM

We lay in bed, facing each other. He exhales.

What?
Nothing. 
Nothing?
Just very happy.

With the pale, silvery street light filtered through the curtains, I can see the contours of his cheek. I touch my hand to his face.

He is smiling.

I want to capture this moment. I want to seal it in a Mason jar and hide it away because I am afraid that he will forget what it feels like to love me.

Would you erase me?

She liked to start random conversations about the mature, the macabre, and the unconventional. It was no holds barred, as if she had never heard of age-appropriate parenting.

When I was eight years old, my mother informed me that the holidays are the worst time of year.

"For some people," she explained, "the season stirs up old memories they'd much rather forget." She then told me that many people contemplate suicide at Christmastime.
























I sat in the truck next to her, staring out the passenger window while I pondered. It had never crossed my mind that forgetting something might be of benefit. Were there things I wished I could forget? Looking back, there are certainly events I wish had never happened at all. There were grotesque and disturbing things that no child should ever endure.

          But now the damage is done.
          So would forgetting really be a good thing?
          I don't think so.

Time heals all wounds, but memories of how the we sustained them make us stronger. The memory, the knowing, the scar... These protect us from repeated abuse.

To this day I cannot say if my mother just hoped for conversation or if she was leaking the truth. Or perhaps she was purposefully preparing me for the real world.

For a penny

There is nothing lonelier than the company of someone else's family on a holiday. I should be thankful for the generosity and love, given freely and without judgement by these people who don't even know who I am. Instead...

I shrink.

I retreat to the bedroom. Or I sit in the corner, staring down at a book. I hear them telling stories in the next room. The comfortable small talk is deafening. It's not that I don't feel included, but that I have no interest in joining in. Oh, I can manage, for a time. I even enjoy it in small doses. But these holidays and weekend trips... all of this focused family time --

I am overwhelmed.

Unconditional love. Love without end. Irrevocable. Assured. Unequivocal. Indisputable.

That such a thing exists is staggering.

I have always experienced love with qualifiers. With doubt. Love that has been offered like a reward and then retracted when I no longer fit the definition of perfect.

I cannot sense unconditional love, and so it is certain that I cannot give it. Though my brain understands, my heart simply doesn't comprehend. It's being asked to describe the flavor of something it has never tasted.

The family that made me is disparate and shallow. Absolutely counterfeit, pawning "unconditional love" for a penny.

...

This perennial melancholy is imperceptible to them because I have pretty eyes.