I did something yesterday that most Americans do. Something that was done in my home throughout my youth. Something that I had done on my own and with my ex- with great relish until the December after my ex- split (2002). And I STILL did it in that year out of habit, but it was so bittersweet an event that I could not face it again until this year. What was so ingrained in me and painful to continue? After that dramatic build up, don't laugh! I bought and trimmed a Christmas tree!
Why is that such a hard thing to do? Well, it's an ornament thing. How every ornament represents something. How they represent places visited: San Francisco, London, and New Orleans. How they represent beloved ideas: Angels, the Wizard of Oz, and Quilting. How they reflect years of creating ornaments together in various mediums for friends: sewing Christmas Trees, Stars, Fish, molding in Plastitac bells, stars, trees, transforming old cards and stamps into ornaments...my ex- and I made this holiday an event.
But that was then.
Christmas Holiday season is a time of celebrating the advent of something new. Something divinely inspired. Something redemptive. Everyone's life has disappointments, unexpected twists and turns, even betrayals. And the choices we all make in the midst of such things have consequences for ourselves and those we once loved.
They can be painful, they are instructive, and they are vehicles of grace if we can find the strength to see them as advents of the Divine. Ultimately, when we are the recipients of such profound options, our very participation becomes a simple choice in itself: wounded, we die; OR wounded, we heal.
The most profound choice of my life has been to heal. And it's not (never) been easy. I have grown to still appreciate and support my ex- (He's a really good man); but I have also accepted the fact that two things will never be understood by either of us: 1) How I could have hurt him so much that he would flee our life together; and, 2) How much that leaving pierced my heart. And yet, my heart beats on.
Look at some of the ornaments on my tree and let your heart be light. Dance like the little Ukrainian princess from the Courtold Gallery in London. Smile like the harlequin doll from New Orleans. And throw wide your arms and hopes and gifts like the Marilynn Monroe ornamented that I bought with my ex- at a Christmas shop in Columbia, Maryland during our last Christmas together.
And above all, let your yuletide be gay!
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2 comments:
wounded, we die; OR wounded, we heal.
You're the profound one, my friend.
That's the best thing I've heard in a long time.
Thanks, Mike. Life offers us things that we don't want without ever asking permission. Yet, we can, given time and grace, grow past anything into more complete people. And that's a process that almost seems to require both joy and sorrow to fully complete. Blessings, r.
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