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Counting Down the Days

December 16, 2025 //
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It’s almost Giftmas time! I admit to counting down the days like a kid, just as eager for Santa to come as if I didn’t know the factual truth of the holiday; we are Santa, as much as we each undertake to be. All around the US, kids are eagerly counting down the days until the holiday – however it is celebrated in their home (if it is). Parents, on the other hand, experience that countdown differently, and they may be counting down the days to the next payday, a little concerned about whether the dollars will stretch for another gift or two under the tree, or whether the lights will be on, or the heating bill paid. Right about this time of year, I’d often hear my Dad’s vexation come through as “If you birds don’t knock that shit off there won’t be any Christmas!” (And oh, damn, the tears that would be shed following that announcement!)

…Our tree often sat in a bucket on the porch, quite bare, until Giftmas Eve, when my Dad would set it up, and make certain it was quite upright with my Mother’s help (she would hang a plumb bob from some point on the stairs, such that my Dad could see it alongside the tree, to trim this or that branch, or adjust the screws in the base holding the tree,and some water for it). We’d all go to bed, passing by the fragrant bare tree standing in the livingroom, wondering if Santa would really come.

Making holidays magical.

I can’t even wrap my head around how my parents made holiday magic every year. They stayed up into the wee hours, decorating the tree together after we kids had gone to bed. They’d assemble things with “some assembly required”. Last minute gifts would be wrapped in secret. All the gifts previously purchased and wrapped would be pulled from their hiding places, and placed under the now-decorated tree. Empty stockings would be taken down from the mantle, filled, and as my parent’s finally went to bed (sometimes closer to 4 am than to 2 am), they would gently lay the stockings at the foot of each kid’s bed – a neat holiday touch that also bought them a little additional time to sleep, since we were allowed to open our stockings quietly and enjoy anything we found, so long as we did not wake them before 5 am. I’m fairly certain that some years, it was our excitement combined with the quiet sound of their bedroom door closing that woke us. Not a lot of sleep-in time in that scenario. lol But wow… the holiday magic was intense, and has lasted me a lifetime.

… I believed in a literal real Santa Claus until embarrassingly late in life, still convinced at 15, reluctantly accepting the truth at some point before I turned 17…

A modest tree, every ornament has history. What stories does your tree tell?

‘Tis the season, eh? How will you be making someone’s holiday bright? What twinkle lights will illuminate your hearth and home with a soft holiday glow in the wee hours of the night? What memories will you make, and carry into the dark nights of your future? What experiences will you share with those dear to you? I call it “Giftmas” instead of “Christmas”, but the holiday is still one that is more about presence than presents. (I do love the presents… but there’s more to it than that, by far.) For me this holiday is a celebration of love and community and getting through our darkest times together; it’s no coincidence that this holiday is so near to the Solstice. The nights are long, dark, and in many places very cold. Resources begin to run low. We rely on each other for our shared survival – this is a time for remembering that, and also celebrating it with a meaningful exchange of gifts. I mean… I think that’s what this holiday is about. That’s what it is for me.

I smile and face another work day. I’m counting down the days, now… 8 more to Giftmas Eve! Will Santa come? Will there be gifts under the tree? A tasty Giftmas morning brunch? A too-early celebration of the day, over coffee or cocktails, still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes? Will there be carols on the stereo? Harry Potter, Home Alone, Christmas Story, Scrooged, and the Grinch on video? A roast supper that seems more elegant with holiday decor in the background? Unexpected packages on the front step? Visits from friends or family? General merriment, the chaos of torn wrapping paper, and the sudden urge to nap before noon? I don’t know. Yes? I don’t build my expectations on any particular detail; I just enjoy the season as it is, all the options, all the challenges, all the choices, and these precious finite moments together – or in solitude. (No wrong answers; we’re each having our own experience, and I have enjoyed some memorable, beautiful Giftmas holidays alone.)

My mind wanders to another magical Giftmas; the first I shared with my Traveling Partner. (If I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend my life with this man before that first Giftmas holiday together, I was definitely certain afterward.) He made that holiday happen for us – for me. It was a gesture of pure love. We didn’t have the means, we had just moved into an apartment together that was double the rent either of us had been paying before. We made a frugal decision to “skip it this year” (no children to disappoint). It kind of bummed me out, but I was “being grown up about it”. Then that cold afternoon that I arrived home… to a small holiday tree, lit and if I’m recalling correctly, decorated. I was moved to happy tears. I’ve never forgotten that loving gesture. It’s one of my fondest Giftmas memories.

I sigh to myself and realize I am distracting myself from physical pain with holiday merriment. I mean… okay. Useful. Handy. I’m okay with it, but the work day is not going to complete itself, and it’s already time to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, winter

Perspectives and Meaning

December 18, 2024 //
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Damn, yesterday ended up being a tough one. It wasn’t that anything particular went wrong, or that there were challenges I couldn’t face. Hell, I wasn’t exactly in a bad mood, even. The day went askew in a strangely emotional way when the office background music began to play “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” in the holiday music mix. Multiple times. Multiple versions. Various singers. No question, an American holiday classic, and it reliably comes up this time of year, sooner or later. For me, it’s simply the saddest and most poignant holiday song ever. It’s a war era (WW II) song, and I reliably hear it sung in the voices of those who will never come home to another holiday. It’s mournful (for me). It’s one holiday song I can’t sing along to; I choke up before I even get the first line sung, and the tears come. I missed an entire holiday season deployed to a war zone myself. We sang this song together, and others, around the diesel stove on winter evenings, fighting off our blues, hoping that we would indeed one day go home for those holidays once more. Some of us don’t ever come home from war. Some of us who do make it home are forever changed by experiences no civilian loved ones can share or truly understand. War is horrible stuff, and the price paid along the way in lives and limbs and souls is far too high. I thought of Gaza. I thought of Ukraine. I thought of Syria. Global conflict. Genocide. The horrors of war. We should maybe stop doing that shit – and I’ll probably always cry when I hear this song. It has real meaning for me. Soldiers kill. Soldiers die. I’ve lost people along the way. My nightmares persist.

…It “broke” my yesterday…

By the time I got home from work, I was pretty much a mess (emotionally) and feeling really low. My Traveling Partner did his best to lift my mood, and together with the Anxious Adventurer we sat around watching “fail videos” and little bits of comic this-n-that, and taking things lightly. I gotta say, my beloved partner’s “emotional slight of hand” was masterful, last night. I had tried to say something about being set off by “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, and the Anxious Adventurer tried (in a well-intended way) to commiserate by sharing how annoying he finds that one particularly notable Mariah Carey holiday song. Understand me, please, I was not “annoyed”, I was grieving and feeling heart-broken over experiences few civilians share, and that I can’t seem to forget. Before I could flare up, irritable and angry over misperceptions of being “dismissed” or not understood seriously, my Traveling Partner put things on a comic footing in a wholesome loving understanding way, easily distracting me long enough for my unreasonable anger to be defused, unnoticed. No harm done. Fuck I love that man. He can make me laugh when I’m hurting. He can make me cry when I’ve grown jaded.

This morning the first words from my Traveling Partner were words of love and fondness and adoration. He tells me I am precious to him. He tells me he loves me. I feel it. I’m moved and my morning feels… merry. A new beginning. He understands, better than most people, where I’ve been and what I’ve been through. We’ve shared a few years together. We’ve had shared experiences, separately, that are not so commonplace for people generally. He “gets me”, mostly. More so than anyone else has. I feel loved.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’m in a different place this morning, although I am sitting in the same chair. I’m wrapped in love. It matters.

Be kind to the veterans in your life, and the survivors of war – you don’t have to know the details of what they’ve been through to care, and to be there as a friend. It matters that you care. It’s enough. Help each other begin again, when things get tough. Share the journey. Hell, just be kind, generally – we’re all going through some shit. It’s a very human experience.

I look at the clock. It’s clearly time to begin again. 14 days to a new year – already? Damn. The time passes so quickly…

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, grief, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, War and News of War

Now Is Not The Time

May 25, 2018 //
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Here’s a Memorial Day weekend reminder that now is not the time to be thanking veteran’s for their service. This is an opportunity, for all of us, veteran’s too, to honor the fallen. The brothers and sisters in arms who did not come home. Who gave everything. This is our time to bow our heads and reflect on the horror of war. Just saying. It’s not about the living.

Image result for arlington

This matters to me. It probably matters to a lot of veterans. We know the price paid to serve, sure; we also know the price that was not exacted from us. We came home with our lives ahead of us. We may be human wreckage – that’s a thing for some – we may be filled with internal torment you just don’t see – also a thing, some of us struggle with for many years – and for many of us, part of that lasting pain is the loss of so many. We lost people we loved, and served with side-by-side, and we lost esteemed professional colleagues, and we lost legends that had gone before us. We lost role models, and wing men. We lost “that guy”. We lost people we never met, and people we knew very well. We lost leaders, and comrades.

Most of us, most of the time, believed we were fighting for a righteous cause. We’re carefully indoctrinated to think so. Some of us knew better or understood things differently. A small few of us knew a very special painful truth; you don’t understand the price we pay, and you don’t understand how carefully we are remade to serve a purpose. You don’t understand, really, that we always knew some of us would never come home. You don’t understand that we served every day knowing that that someone could be… us. You don’t understand that many of us never quite leave it behind. Because you can’t. It’s not your experience.

Please don’t burden veteran’s with your thanks  today. This is our day to remember. To grieve. To acknowledge that we came home. To regret that others didn’t. This, too, is our day to stare fiercely into the eyes of those in power with a challenge – you show me this was in fact worth the price. Prove it. Prove it or go fuck yourself – and bring our brothers and sisters home. This is our honor, this is our Memorial. I’d frankly very much like to stop adding new bodies to the body count. I say the price for your glory is too high.

I’m taking the weekend off. This is a time to reflect on what matters most, and what is the value of a human life. ❤

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Categories Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, War and News of War

Home for the Holidays

December 23, 2014 //
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It’s the holiday break from work, and I’ve got a couple of weeks at the end of the year to get some needed down time, celebrate the holidays, and invest my time in my own needs and agenda for a few precious days. Time to share with loved ones. Time to meditate. Time to explore the world within – or the world beyond these walls and windows. Time for me. Time for love. It’s a great idea…isn’t it?

Being home for the holidays holds so much promise, so much potential…so much risk. Yep. Risk, too. Risk of drama, risk of disappointment, risk of ‘failure’…and all of that self-selected and self-imposed. It’s easy to get attached to a particular idea, a particular dream of holiday magic, and find myself disappointed, not in the moment, but overall – having invested too much in a pretty daydream, and failing to enjoy the precious moment that is.  I sometimes also get hung up on what was, and what wasn’t; that’s just the chaos and damage, leaking through to now.

I sing holiday carols – I love most of them, the heartfelt yearning, the love, the wonder, the sentiment. I sing along with them and feel.  There are a few that always make me weep; I am grieving, in some cases, feelings I don’t have for myself, or crying because what is real can sometimes hurt so much. One of my favorite emotional holiday carols is “I’ll Be Home for Christmas“, an old WWII era carol. The homesick sorrow of soldiers on the battlefield, missing their loved ones and the safety of a holiday at home…it’s not why I cry. I cry when I hear/sing that carol because I don’t have that home to go back to; it’s an empty promise. It’s spelled out in the song, too… “I’ll be home for Christmas…if only in my dreams…” Yes. I will also be home for Christmas, every year, no matter what…if only in my dreams. What do you feel when you think of ‘home’? Where is that place for you? Is it a geographical location, or the companionship of a specific other person? Is it a place, or a place in your heart?

I do have a very clear idea of what these holidays feel like, and I’ve been ‘home for the holidays’ on a level that amounted to ‘proof of concept’ more than once. It remains an experience of rare heart and beauty, and great sentiment. The price of admission is feeling the feelings, and being with others who share them. It’s called ‘the magic of Christmas’ because the experience of it is not a given, and it is an experience worth cherishing, nurturing, and savoring.

This morning is an ordinary enough Tuesday morning, I guess. I was wakened earlier than I wanted to be awake by the sounds of doors, voices, laundry… I looked at the clock, stunned to see all that going on at such an early hour, on a day I expected the house to be rather quiet. Morning appointments trump sleeping in.  This morning I find myself recognizing that this particular desire to ‘sleep until I wake’ isn’t so easily fulfilled, the logistics are complicated, and require a shared commitment that is lacking, and the frustration and disappointment of failing to find my way to the quality of sleep and rest I am seeking is becoming its own thing. Time to let it go, I guess; it’s not worth being irritated about not achieving it. “Enough sleep” will have to be enough.

I’m in pain, again today. I’m in enough pain that Rx pain relief doesn’t do much to relieve the pain, just dulls it somewhat and renders it manageable. I’m in enough pain to be uncomfortable to be around, for people sensitive to that sort of thing; it’s just too obvious that I am uncomfortable. I’m in enough pain to struggle to manage my mood, and my temper. Yoga doesn’t take away the pain, but it does make movement easier, and a bit less uncomfortable moment to moment. Everyday pain has become so every day at this point it is now a challenge to remember a time when I didn’t hurt like this, although wisdom and intellect tell me that such a point of view is flawed and inaccurate. I have hurt like this, in winter, for years now. It always sucks just this much.

home for the holidays...

home for the holidays…

Home for the holidays – the adult version; I know what I want, I know that it is ‘real’, and I know I can’t have it. What I can have is still a wonderful holiday, still worthy, still filled with joy; there are verbs involved, and a certain level of adult acceptance – and self-acceptance – are required, and perhaps ‘some assembly’. We can’t always get what we want… Today is a good day to celebrate the holidays that are, with the people who are here.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50, winter, Words

Days Go By

December 17, 2013 //
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I rather expected writing daily would become almost effortless simply by gaining 40 hours of my time back to my own calendar, my own agenda, my own experience. I apparently had an oversimplified understanding of time, effort, and my ability to set cognitive and practical boundaries with loved ones. It’s the holidays! Admittedly, my attention is easily diverted toward The  Holiday Express railway I was surprised with this weekend, circling the heavily laden tree (would it be possible to hang even one additional light or ornament?). I have entertaining daydreams of scale homes and businesses, a future holiday village, some kind of year-round display. Yep. I do actually dig the train that much. I find myself wondering if my partners are surprised by how much joy it brings me.

The holiday train my partner surprised me with this year. :-D

The holiday train my partner surprised me with this year. 😀

My musings bring me back to history, and the contemplation of ‘who I am’ relative to my current relationships, relative to former relationships, other times in my life, other careers, jobs, homes, other trains…We each have such a rich history, such an amazing personal narrative to share. I feel a momentary pang of sadness knowing that my loves were not – and can’t ever be – ‘with me there, then’ in other times, other places. Funny thing that ‘past’ bit – it’s over. It hasn’t all been good stuff, but it has been part of who I have become as I waded through the best and worst of my experiences.

I live very much in my ‘now’ these days. It has even grown to be a very comfortable fit, over the past year. The excitement and adventure of 2014 is beginning to develop as a sort of ‘horizon’ in the not-so-very-distant future.  I consider it each morning as I wake and unfold with a new dawn, briefly, before settling again into ‘now’. There are some opportunities to grow that have my attention, like “The Year of Enough“.  My own annual One Hour Facebook event is already on the calendar.  Articles about New Year’s resolutions are beginning to become common.  It’s the time of year that ‘the world’ gives us free rein to reconsider who we are, what we want, where we are headed. For a few weeks people seem more positive, more encouraging, more hopeful, more compassionate…like a soap-bubble, however exciting, colorful, and perfectly wonderful it appears, it bursts so easily, and is gone – generally in a fairly predictable way, and usually before the end of January. That is a sad thing. Let’s do it differently this year, shall we? Instead of resolving this or that, perhaps we can each simply choose to be the best of who we know we can, each day, each decision, each relationship…and see what comes of that? We’ll talk about it at the end of the year, share notes, and continue on. 😀

I’m hurting a lot this year, but it’s just pain. I made a good decision to take a few weeks for me, turns out I’m needing it just to be comfortable and well. I even find myself able to see ahead to a future in which I am not in therapy…not because I gave up on it since it wasn’t working, but because I will have learned what I can, and don’t need the ongoing significant support from outside my relationships, and my own self-care. That is quite possibly the very best gift I am getting this year.

I would like to write something more significant today, but I likely won’t.  (As I put a period on that sentence, I find myself smiling along to the beat of the song in my head, and thinking ‘what could be more significant that becoming awake, and aware, with my will and my values in harmony’?)  I don’t have words for the smile I feel on my face, and in my heart.

I have so many words to choose from, and I do love them so. This morning, though, I am thinking, too, about silence. I would also like to give that a try. Maybe next year…

Today I am content. Today I love with compassion and joy. Today I am humbled and awed by the simple beauty of being alive and aware. Today I will change the world. 😀

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Love, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, winter, Words
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