"Adios, Mi Vida" Texas Tornados, Day after Christmas, '08

All the old totems are falling. All the things that I held sacred, that I wished for you are going by the wayside. You are slowly but surely being replaced, which is something that you wished for. It's not going the way that you wanted, that's for sure. Hell, it didn't go the way that anyone wanted, but that's life.

Christmas has gone by us once again. I thought of you, my old dear, many times yesterday as I danced with the ghosts of Christmas past. I have to wonder how you braved the snow, if The Detective got your Christmas lights up, if you made it back to Colorado or not. I have to wonder if you had your artificial tree up, or whether you bought a fresh one, but then again, if I knew you were going out of state I would know the answer to that.

I have to wonder what presents you got for Christmas, if your household was filled up with guests on your 45th birthday, if you have big New Year's Eve plans or whether things have gone back to "normal", a form of normal that'll find you in bed before midnight, listening attentively for horses that will never come.

I have to wonder if all the dreams you had for yourself, dreams that took out out and about in the world, with a degree, in a more secular workplace, in the arms of a man who would have placed you first for once, are as cold and dead as the leaves under the snow behind your house. I wonder, too, if your house and hearth are as warm as you wished for, as was promised you, two summers and a half a year ago. I wonder, I wonder.

But what I don't wonder about is my life right now. I know for certain that that satchel is stashed well away, that places that we once visited and gave our business to are being trodded on by new feet. I know that those things I wanted to do with you are now being sidetracked and replaced with new adventures with someone new in my life that in my wildest dreams I never expected to be there.

But, then again, I felt that "never in my wildest dreams" thing about you, too.

Yet, they are all so different, those feelings.

Our old feelings. Small, put away, almost trifles, now, but they never seem to go completely away, do they?

But, like the singer sang out in that Texas Tornado song I just heard a moment ago, I must say goodbye to you, my life. I must say goodbye so I can live life again to it's fullest.

Funny how the years pass and it's only been time, not you, not the Estranged one, not my children or my work or anything else, that has lessened the pain. But time, my friend, my ally, has stood by me, watched over me, helped me grow, helped me get over you and past all the hurt and anguish. Has helped me stop wondering so much about you and had me start dreaming about possibilities all over again.

And that sense of time, time that I once so willing gave over to you? Well, it now belongs to me, and to my children, and...well, to my new friend, too.

Damn it, M. It's all about living. Not being shackled to a God, or a dogma, or guilt. It was, and is, all about life.

And baby, I am all about life. Like that character Anselmo said in For the Bell Tolls, "I am a old man and I will live until the day I die". But I am not an old man yet. And I have traded in that ten year plan I was going to give you for a thirty year one. What do you think about that? Is that life affirming enough for you?

So, to a new year. We are almost upon it. The last story to this long story comes in the next installment and this tale, this long, long tale of love and sorrow and a life together missed, will finally rest. See you on my birthday, M.

Love, it's all in the telling.

Yours WHMB