Gifts, Simple and Not

At 0800 hours this morning Operation Dismantle Christmas got under way.

Getting that dead tree out of my living room felt like taking a giant deep breath. We had a nice enough holiday, seeing everyone we wanted and needed to with a minimum of traveling but still, my heart wasn’t really in it this year.

The kids just didn’t seem excited about their gifts and the weather was too warm to feel cozy. When our last set of guests departed early yesterday morning you could hear the entire house sigh, and then settle.

Also, about two weeks before we left for the East Coast, we got a card from the priest who married us, buried my dad and baptized both of our children.

He retired.

I was honestly crestfallen. All year I’d tried to hold on to the feeling of spirit and light that filled me up last Christmas Eve, and failed. I wanted to drink from that fountain again, to feel faith solid beneath my feet.

I wanted to feel at home.

***

I lost my job on Dec. 22.

It is the third job I’ve lost this year, mostly due to circumstance. This time around it was a mutual parting–and a relief. I need to go back to doing what I do best. I need to be writing and editing and engaged in hands-on management of my business.

The person I worked for was a friend, too. Now that she’s not my boss anymore, I like her a whole lot better. I have to say though, as far as the timing goes, it was pretty sucky.

Merry Christmas!

***

You’re so gifted.

You’re a gifted writer, so talented.

I see myself in your words.

You tell me these things. You send me emails, tweet at me, leave me comments here. You hand me these gifts disguised as simple words and I don’t always know what to do with them.

As precious as they are, I am so afraid to break them. I don’t know where to put them, how to display them. I don’t know how to thank you.

I don’t know what to do with my gift.

Writing here is one thing. Writing out there is something different. This autumn, I decided I was going to tell my story — or some story, I didn’t care which one. But every time I sit down to write something that isn’t just a silly little vingnette about the nosedive of my life I feel gagged.

I am as blank as the screen in front of me.

You tell me I write so prettily about pain. What does that say about me?

***

The first time I set foot in the church where I was wed, the sermon was about forgiveness.

I’d been very angry that week, steaming really, about something awful that had been done to my family by one particular person. This person was someone I’d long been furious with. I’d harbored hate and resentment for this person.

As I sat in the pew while our soon-to-be beloved priest spoke calmly and quietly about the power of forgiveness, I felt my heart bloom like a rose in the summer sun.

I forgave.

This month I was confronted twice with works of art based on the theme of forgiveness. A film and a novel, both with the same theme. Letting go of hatred and anger.

After the film I had to excuse myself to the restroom, where I sobbed for 15 minutes. I had an early epiphany, one that me led to understand why I’ve been so angry, so twisted up…so upset. And not just for the last 12 months. I’ve been so sad and so pissed off for so long that I didn’t know what it felt like to not be those things anymore.

It got so bad that I looked for help.

I believe the work I’ve done to help myself over the last four months crystalized in that dirty movie-theater bathroom. Something inside me finally broke.

And dissolved.

I forgive everyone. I forgive my dad for getting sick and dying on me when I still needed him. I forgive my family for coming apart at the seams when he did die and for knitting back together in an unfamiliar way. I forgive my husband for uprooting me when I was still grieving, messily.

I forgive myself.

These are my gifts this year, gifts so simple and so not.