Christmas Eve

I'm back. Almost a year later. Living something as complex and rich as I could desire. Today, I'll head out to participate in the consumer frenzy and tonight I'll send my baby off to her father for her first Christmas Eve without me, and I'll head to a friend's house to try to relax and enjoy what will inevitably feel lonely. Later tonight, my new beloved will call me from Toronto, where he has gone to celebrate Christmas with his two children and his ex-inlaws. He's making the trip there today because his ex chose to be with her fiance and their new baby rather than her children by him. I can't imagine making that kind of choice myself. But, there's a lot happening that I have trouble processing. My life this past year has been about accepting what feels unacceptable and reconciling myself to things not being the way I want them to be.

A Year On . . .

I saw The Reader last night. It was an appropriate Valentine's Day selection, stressing the painful, surprising, haunting forms of love that are not celebrated with chocolate and roses. As much as I'd prefer sweet and romantic expressions of attachment, they've never struck me as authentic. Even the film, with its focus on the youthful flowering of a young man's eros, stressed that what he lived with ever after was a kind of self-induced trauma, based more on his own complex sensibilities and less on those of his idealized beloved. And yet, and yet . . . feelings emerged out of that which enabled him to express care that was real and far more powerful than his initial desire.

I think love emerges as actions through time. It is the manifestation of our choice to be connected, despite the pain that may bring.