There is a string of imitation garland resting on my porch right now that still needs to be put up. I think it would like a bit of lights to go along with it. I thought about stringing lights on the Blue Spruce, but I decorated it with ornaments instead and I think it looks just fine the way it is. More "green" that way. All the same since I didn't pay anything for that garland so I might as well put it to use. A couple of penny nails, an extension cord and an old string of lights and I'll be in business.
I am not consistent with my holiday lights. Some years I'm good to go, others I can't be bothered. It seems to be the case on this block this year. Some neighbors are really gung-ho about it, others let the whole light thing go. Economy? Infirmity? Just too busy or just don't care? Really, does it matter? I was sitting on the couch in my living room a few moments ago and looked out over the world and realized how much I will miss this place when I'm gone and far away but then, knew too that I will go on and find someplace new and that's okay and exciting, too. It's not so much the location as where you dwell inside yourself. I hope to leave behind a bit of the baggage that's weighed me down, but I am sure that I cart along most of it and so there I'll be, same couch, same man, just looking out onto a different world.
I wonder about you and the world that you look out onto, look in on, too. I wonder about Christmas trees and holiday lights, whether your annual shopping trips and parties and road plans are all in order. I wonder, I wonder, with the eyes and mind of a child and know that I shouldn't but then again we all do things that we shouldn't do. I know after all this time I shouldn't be dropping you ficticious emails on your birthday but I did. I know that I shouldn't have posted the same kind of wish for you on our mutually shared social networking tool, but I did that, too. I shouldn't worry about you, think about you, give you a moment of my time, but funny how life is. I suppose I'll go along like this until common sense or another woman puts a stop to it. Or maybe it'll just go underground the way it must have for you.
I know that this time of year is colored now for you, too. How could it be otherwise? You don't someone making you cheesecakes from scratch, or holding their hands over your eyes as they bring you to your birthday table. No one is out shopping for you in a way that say's that they know you or that they care about the little things that thrill you. Maybe none of that matters now, maybe you don't care or pretend not to. Maybe you have to remind someone these days to put up the lights, lights that you always had to string by yourself, or maybe instead of asking you do it yourself, anyway. Maybe you do or maybe you don't but I think that the planning and the decorating and all that is still your territory. If it isn't all on your shoulders these days I am happy for you. It was a hardwon battle to get it to be otherwise. And as you know all I want is for you is your happiness, truly.
Happiness. It's the holidays and right now I am generally happy. Tomorrow I will rummage around in the basement and find a simple string of lights to go along with that garland. Right now my tree is lit in the living room and I am happy for what I have and for the lessons life has bestowed upon me. I have been kicking around the house by myself for the past two days and that's been fine, too. I passed up on a Hannakah event at the home of the Hot Dog King on Saturday and effectively ended my volunteer stint at the movie house yesterday but really, that's okay. I am not hiding away or tunneling in or anything like that. I found that by staying home I didn't spend money (which was a very good thing), that I was able to knock out five applications, that I was able to put together two great meals and was able to watch new four films. All to the good.
I noticed,too, that while my life is more my own I am more in tune to what is happening outside my life and I know now more than ever that this life I am living right now is just a blip on the screen, a bump in the road. That this holiday season, the first I have ever really spent without family or a parter or a lover or even an active girlfriend to influence my life and my schedule is the last one I will spend like this. It's been okay to be this way, at home and alone but I know myself all too well. I miss the people angle, the hubbub, the action, the noise, the lights, the joy of daily interaction. Know that I am working very hard to change my status, truly, yet, all the while, grooving on the knowledge that this time is my own and that it's precious.
And yet I know why life is like this and it's just as plain as that garland resting on my porch. It's this way because I am still living a life that is still colored by you and our times.
I don't have Christmas lights up but then again I was doing it there for awhile just to show you that I was one better than The Detective. I don't have to do that anymore. I don't have to try to be better than anyone other than myself. My tree is beautiful, and I don't need you in my life to have it be that way. My Santa collection is burgeoning and it's been my jones completely. No one has been around to influence my holiday music, my movie selection, my Christmas shopping. Everything I do right now I do because it brings me joy or because I know that it lights up someone else's eyes, but with no strings attached.
I am not consistent with my holiday lights. Some years I'm good to go, others I can't be bothered. It seems to be the case on this block this year. Some neighbors are really gung-ho about it, others let the whole light thing go. Economy? Infirmity? Just too busy or just don't care? Really, does it matter? I was sitting on the couch in my living room a few moments ago and looked out over the world and realized how much I will miss this place when I'm gone and far away but then, knew too that I will go on and find someplace new and that's okay and exciting, too. It's not so much the location as where you dwell inside yourself. I hope to leave behind a bit of the baggage that's weighed me down, but I am sure that I cart along most of it and so there I'll be, same couch, same man, just looking out onto a different world.
I wonder about you and the world that you look out onto, look in on, too. I wonder about Christmas trees and holiday lights, whether your annual shopping trips and parties and road plans are all in order. I wonder, I wonder, with the eyes and mind of a child and know that I shouldn't but then again we all do things that we shouldn't do. I know after all this time I shouldn't be dropping you ficticious emails on your birthday but I did. I know that I shouldn't have posted the same kind of wish for you on our mutually shared social networking tool, but I did that, too. I shouldn't worry about you, think about you, give you a moment of my time, but funny how life is. I suppose I'll go along like this until common sense or another woman puts a stop to it. Or maybe it'll just go underground the way it must have for you.
I know that this time of year is colored now for you, too. How could it be otherwise? You don't someone making you cheesecakes from scratch, or holding their hands over your eyes as they bring you to your birthday table. No one is out shopping for you in a way that say's that they know you or that they care about the little things that thrill you. Maybe none of that matters now, maybe you don't care or pretend not to. Maybe you have to remind someone these days to put up the lights, lights that you always had to string by yourself, or maybe instead of asking you do it yourself, anyway. Maybe you do or maybe you don't but I think that the planning and the decorating and all that is still your territory. If it isn't all on your shoulders these days I am happy for you. It was a hardwon battle to get it to be otherwise. And as you know all I want is for you is your happiness, truly.
Happiness. It's the holidays and right now I am generally happy. Tomorrow I will rummage around in the basement and find a simple string of lights to go along with that garland. Right now my tree is lit in the living room and I am happy for what I have and for the lessons life has bestowed upon me. I have been kicking around the house by myself for the past two days and that's been fine, too. I passed up on a Hannakah event at the home of the Hot Dog King on Saturday and effectively ended my volunteer stint at the movie house yesterday but really, that's okay. I am not hiding away or tunneling in or anything like that. I found that by staying home I didn't spend money (which was a very good thing), that I was able to knock out five applications, that I was able to put together two great meals and was able to watch new four films. All to the good.
I noticed,too, that while my life is more my own I am more in tune to what is happening outside my life and I know now more than ever that this life I am living right now is just a blip on the screen, a bump in the road. That this holiday season, the first I have ever really spent without family or a parter or a lover or even an active girlfriend to influence my life and my schedule is the last one I will spend like this. It's been okay to be this way, at home and alone but I know myself all too well. I miss the people angle, the hubbub, the action, the noise, the lights, the joy of daily interaction. Know that I am working very hard to change my status, truly, yet, all the while, grooving on the knowledge that this time is my own and that it's precious.
And yet I know why life is like this and it's just as plain as that garland resting on my porch. It's this way because I am still living a life that is still colored by you and our times.
I don't have Christmas lights up but then again I was doing it there for awhile just to show you that I was one better than The Detective. I don't have to do that anymore. I don't have to try to be better than anyone other than myself. My tree is beautiful, and I don't need you in my life to have it be that way. My Santa collection is burgeoning and it's been my jones completely. No one has been around to influence my holiday music, my movie selection, my Christmas shopping. Everything I do right now I do because it brings me joy or because I know that it lights up someone else's eyes, but with no strings attached.
I know that my Estranged One is pleased that I am coming back to visit and that the children are excited to have Papa there. I am excited to have a job interview lined up in the Treasure Valley that might lead to a job there in the New Year. Maybe next year I will be looking out my window onto a new landscape somewhere in Idaho, who knows? But what I do know is that when I look out the window I will be looking out onto a life that has been shaped and shifted by my own devices. That I will be only able to wonder if your old man put up the Christmas lights, because God knows it'll be too long of a drive to see so for myself.
Your WHMB
Your WHMB
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