Christmas Wish

Every Christmas I catch myself reminiscing about the days of my childhood when I would lay awake on Christmas Eve trying desperately to fall asleep so that Santa would come (he won't arrive until you're asleep you know.) Belief is so powerful and wonderful. My own was so strong that I didn't figure out that there wasn't a Santa, rather at the old age of 8 my mother had to sit me down and explain that Santa is simply a story. There once was a real St. Nicholas, but he lived a long time ago and now moms and dads do all of Santa's work. Even after being handed this frightful news, I still said, ".......but there is an Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy, right?"

In time I made peace with a cruel world without Santa and all the other fictional characters that bring magic and wonder into the life of a child. I may have grown too comfortable with it. Like it or not I've grown pretty cynical really. I don't trust strangers, I don't give money to homeless people on the street and I rarely give my phone number or address to anybody. If there were a Santa he'd have a hard time finding me. Is that to say I'm heartless? Not at all. Avoiding eye contact is a useful way to be safe in a city, I happily give granola bars or candy to homeless people and 3% of my income to the salvation army, who can do much more good than I can; and my personal information is best kept with people I know. The truth is that the world children know is largely fiction and that is okay.

Still, even though I know that most of the magic I once believed in is no more than a fantastic story, occasionally I catch myself wishing. When I look at the wide world and the small one that surrounds me I catch myself wishing for things. Little things and big things. Possible and impossible. There is brokenness all around us. Broken hearts, broken homes, broken countries, broken minds, broken souls, broken relationships and broken lives. I find myself wishing I could give a little girl her divorced parents back together and loving each other and her. Or wishing I could give the peace of forgiveness to someone filled with hate and self-loathing. Or wishing I could end wars and send young boys back to their distraught families. I wish no one would go hungry or lose their home or job. I wish everyone were cared for.

My original intent was to make a list of Christmas wishes, but what is interesting is that all of my wishes really have the same root. I really want just one thing. The cynic in me initially scoffed at the idea, but I guess that little girl who believed so fervently in Santa Claus ultimately won out. My wish is simple. I wish for love in every one's hearts. Love really is the answer. If we are really filled with love for ourselves and each other we will only bring love and joy into the lives of those around us. It's when all those other ugly things like selfishness and fear creep in that we begin to do harm and grow to be disrespectful and hateful. So it is simple and yet profound. My Christmas wish is love for all.

What do you wish for this year?

Live, Collapse, Smile

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote the only book about the experience of divorce that I read and enjoyed. Most books about a woman surviving divorce are like a bad (as if there were good, but bear with me) Lifetime channel movie. Eat, Pray, Love hit home in ways that I can't even begin to express. This complete stranger is somehow a kindred spirit, we weirdly even share the same birthday. I cried through the first few chapters of the book, not because these were laden with any sort of sentimentality or overt emotional manipulation (as they do on Lifetime), but more because she had somehow managed to have a similar trajectory for her marriage.

Our stories start out similar. She married the person who seemed perfect at the time and eventually ended up with the marriage, home and career that she set out to have and somehow it was completely empty. There she was crying on the bathroom floor because she wasn't pregnant and was relieved, and yet that wasn't how she was supposed to feel. I've been on that bathroom floor, I've cried those tears. And much like her, it wasn't long after that realization that the marriage finally fell apart.

After and during her divorce she almost immediately fell into a passionate and ultimately doomed relationship, one that was intense and hard to shake, even after it was supposed to be over. I had the same experience, but this is where the overlap in our stories ends.

Elizabeth was a successful writer prior to her divorce, and so she managed to get a book deal allowing her to spend a year traveling the globe and writing about her experiences. I simply lost my job and home. Eat, Pray, Love refers to the three parts of her journey. She went to Italy and experienced pleasure to it's fullest through eating and soaking up life, while yet being celibate. Then she traveled to India where she learned spiritual devotion and even experienced some degree of enlightenment. Finally she went to Bali of all places and there she ultimately learned to balance pleasure and spirituality while learning to love again.

My story is less glamorous. My job ended, in part related to my divorce, but largely because I didn't fully appreciate it until it was gone. I didn't get to travel the world while I figured things out, I went to Ohio. So if I were so write the story using Elizabeth Gilbert's format, my story would be titled Live, Collapse, Smile.

After my ex-husband left I soon felt very free. I spent time with my friends, I finally began to feel at home in Detroit. Eventually I fell head over heels for someone in a short period of time. I'd never fallen so hard or so fast, for the first time in years I felt like I was really living my life rather than watching it pass me by. Suddenly I was making choices for myself, rather than doing what I thought I should or felt obligated to. No more resentment, no more feeling trapped, just me and my life. What is interesting is what I learned in that period. After all those years of resisting having children, of wishing I weren't married, and devoting my heart and soul to my career I came to realize that I really wanted everything I'd been fighting. I wanted to be married and have children and my career just didn't matter to me at all anymore. AND the current love of my life, the man I was so crazy about, wasn't the one to give me all of that.

Thus, the Collapse chapter began. I somewhat abruptly broke up with my love and everything fell apart. The full weight of everything crashed in around me and I felt like I was drowning. Everything I knew and understood about my world had changed. I cried without ceasing for over 24 hours, I didn't eat, I didn't sleep. I gave up. In the middle of all this I learned that I was losing my home. I felt such hopelessness and despair. All I wanted to do was sleep until it all stopped hurting. I wanted to just wake up years later when everything was better. Of course this is never an option, we have to live through our pain, and I barely did, but I made it with considerable help from my family and friends. Ultimately I had to let the last remnants of my old life go. My friends and family pulled together to pack up my things and move me to Ohio where they could take care of me while I picked up the pieces.

Ohio has been a string of unfulfilling and menial jobs living in a place that is far from interesting or cultured and somehow in the middle of all of that I found myself. For the first time in my life I'm clear about what I want and where I want to go. I even managed to find a wonderful person and fall in love........(yes again.) As much as it shocks me, what I really want is to take care of him and have a family together. I'm living my life as I want to, not as I perceive I'm supposed to or to please anyone else. Despite my being broke and having no discernible career, I'm happy. I smile and laugh all the time. I had all but forgotten how to do both before my marriage fell apart. I was numb then, and now I'm fully alive. It may not be perfect, it may be messy, but I'm living and smiling about it.

While Elizabeth Gilbert had the privilege of traveling the world to put the pieces of her life back together, I had the privilege of moving to Ohio. I fell in love with a great guy, who ultimately wasn't "the" guy, but helped me to see that I could love again. With him I got out of my dreary home and found the joys of living the way I'd always wanted to. I let go of that relationship and for a little while things seemed bleak, but I learned to let people love me and help me pull myself together. I had to fully collapse before I could find my joy again. My joy is a life quite ordinary in a place far from exceptional, yet spent with someone quite extrodinary. So my story is Live, Collapse, Smile, and I'm all the better for it, even if I didn't get to travel the world while I sorted it all out.