Cheers Dears.

Maybe it’s because I only slept a total of two hours last night, but I’m right on the edge of sobbing at every commercial on TV that involves children, babies, pets, toys, and even feminine hygiene products. Hell, I even started tearing up at Macy’s Black Friday sale ad that I’ve seen no fewer than 6 times in the last hour.

Sure, it’s Thanksgiving Eve. Kitchens. Cooking. Slicing. Dicing. Fireplaces. Traveling. Bottles of wine. Cheeses. Rearranging the refrigerator. Then rearranging it again. And this year a little snow. Perfect, right?

Then why am I teetering on the tip of an emotional dip?

I think it’s because I’ve lost people again this year. Through death, dissolution, and sometimes just plain undernourished relationships. I should be getting used to it now that I’m getting older, but I’m not (getting used to it). We all lose people don’t we? If I could just get ’em back for this one day. Just this one time. I swear I’d be thankful.

I feel guilty for allowing this uncomfortable energy to invade a day when excitement, enticement, and enlightenment should all be served on the dining room table. Next to the gravy boat. I like gravy boats. And ladles. But I learn… WE learn… to mix the sad with the glad like bread chunks and sage.

After all… Thanksgiving is for the living. For the love. For folks that have things. Warm homes. Friends. Family. Laughter. Squealing kids. Nervous pets. Hugs all around. Carving new relationships. Safe relationships. Glasses clinking all around. Echoes of laughter not around.

I miss them today. Cheers.

every single day.

And every single day, I look for a glimpse of you. In every echoed footstep, in every strangers laugh, in every child’s eye. I look for you as the warm sun runs flashing past my open car window as I listen hard for that song we danced to… and the one we cried with. I squint to see your smiling face as I turn the corner to our empty house… my cavernous home. The only sound, my shoes, as they click, too loudly, on stairs that lead to a night I thought would never end. And every single day. I still look for you. And weep. Silently.

(Not really sure where this came from other than it came)

Where’d You Go?

I guess I’m at that age. I’ve been to way too many funerals in the past year. This is the part of life that older folks used to tell me about… but I never really heard it. I’m older now. We all get here. Then there. It’s no surprise really.

Special friends and family that have been pulled from my world.. a little too harshly for me. We get together to celebrate their lives… to share memories… to laugh… and to cry. Sometimes I feel selfish for making their lives… and their deaths… about me. About MY loss. I guess that’s the only perspective that I have though. I don’t apologize for that.

I try to see the positive that comes from these types of things. And they’re there when I look through the tears. I’ve become a little closer with the friends and family that I haven’t seen in awhile. I learn to value the expression of feeling more. I learn that we all really are so similar. The differences don’t matter. Sunrises, sunsets, beaches, a bottle of ice-cold root beer, running through a sprinkler, and playing frisbee in the middle of the street… matters. Breathing deep matters. I get this from those that left me.

So with half the year done, and another half to go, don’t let the differences matter. Don’t let the money matter. Or the career. Relationships are what are important. Work them. Put effort into them. FEEL them.

And for the record, I’m done with funerals for now.