Fantasy

Here we are -- Christmas 2017

This song has been on repeat for me this holiday season:

Oh, when you walk by every night
Talking sweet and looking fine
I get kind of hectic inside
Oh, baby, I'm so into you
Darling if you only knew
All the things that flow through my mind

But it's just a sweet, sweet fantasy, baby
When I close my eyes you come and take me
On and on and on, it's so deep in my daydreams
But it's just a sweet, sweet fantasy, baby (fantasy)
(And I want you so bad)

Images of rapture
Creep into me slowly
As you're going to my head
And my heart beats faster
When you take me over
Time and time and time again

But it's just a sweet, sweet fantasy, baby
When I close my eyes you come and take me
On and on and on, it's so deep in my daydreams
But it's just a sweet, sweet fantasy, baby
It's just a sweet, sweet fantasy, baby
When I close my eyes you come and take me
On and on and on, it's so deep in my daydreams
But it's just a sweet, sweet fantasy, baby

I'm happy to say that this year, it's not just a sweet, sweet fantasy baby -- my man really is here with us, celebrating the season - and I'm so grateful!

Vision of Love

Vday starts off right: Ashtanga practice @my pad

Well Valentines, here we are: Nearly six years out from my divorce and nearly two years out from the departure of my beloved New Englander, I've finally fallen in love with myself.

Sing it, Mariah!

Treated me kind
Sweet destiny
Carried me through desperation
To the one that was waiting for me
It took so long
Still I believed
Somehow the one that I needed
Would find me eventually

I had a vision of love
And it was all that you've given to me

Prayed through the nights
Felt so alone
Suffered from alienation
Carried the weight on my own
Had to be strong
So I believed
And now I know I've succeeded
In finding the place I conceived

I had a vision of love
And it was all that you've given to me
I had a vision of love
And it was all that you've given me

I've realized a dream
And I visualized
The love that came to be
Feel so alive
I'm so thankful that I've received
The answer that heaven
Has sent down to me

Me.

That's right, I am the one that I've been waiting for. I'm the only one who will never leave me, so it's a good thing I've managed to become my own friend and lover!

Sure, all the things that come with a real, live, flesh and blood lover outside of you are great, and I am looking forward to fulfilling that vision of love too. But I now understand that I just wasn't fully capable of doing that until I managed to fully embrace myself...

Auld Lang Syne

Cabin play on the frozen lake with cousins

We spent New Year's Eve up at the cabin with my parents and my sister's family. Although it was a really cold day, the kids managed to get outside to play, and so did my sister and I.

We also played games and watched a movie inside -- Parental Guidance -- featuring Billy Crystal. My favorite movie of his is of course, When Harry Met Sally, which has one of my favorite New Years scenes ever -- one that I believe I linked in a post not too long ago about the moment when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone.

I'm hear to tell you, kids, in case you haven't already learned it through your own experience, that sometimes even when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, and you tell them so, you may not actually get to spend your life with that person.

Yep, it's a big, huge drag, but you do your best not to let it drag you down, because you've got two great kids and a whole lotta love to give to some lucky man who wants to spend his life with you too. And you'll find him. Or he'll find you. Maybe even in 2015.

And this, my friends, is the circuitous path by which I arrived at the song to mark this day, a song also featured in WHMS:

Should old acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot
And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We'll take a cup of kindness yet
For auld lang syne, for auld lang syne

Yep, that's right. The link I provided is to a Mariah Carey cover. What can I say? She has a beautiful voice...

All I Want for Christmas

While my kids and I were hanging out in the living room this Christmas Eve, this song came on Pandora:

I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree

I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas
Is you, you yeah

It may seem like a funny song for a single girl to choose to mark Christmas Eve, but truly, there's nothing in my whole life I ever wished harder for than children, and I couldn't be more grateful for the ones I get to call my own:

I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
And I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree

I don't need to hang my stocking
There upon the fireplace
Santa Claus won't make me happy
With a toy on Christmas Day

I reckon the new year will bring a man I'll want to find under the mistletoe:

I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you
You baby

Oh, I won't ask for much this Christmas
I won't even wish for snow
And I'm just gonna keep on waiting
Underneath the mistletoe

But for now, there's no one in particular I'm dreaming about being here with me tonight:

I won't make a list and send it

Here we are! Christmas 2013

To the North Pole for Saint Nick
I won't even stay awake to
Hear those magic reindeer click

'Cause I just want you here tonight
Holding on to me so tight
What more can I do?
Baby all I want for Christmas is you,
You Baby

Oh, all the lights are shining
So brightly everywhere
And the sound of children's
Laughter fills the air

So it's off to sleep for me now, so I can get up early and enjoy Christmas morning with my kids...

Hero

I could feel all day that there was something uncomfortable brewing under the surface today, but it took hearing this cheesy song to finally get the tears flowing:

There's a hero
If you look inside your heart
You don't have to be afraid
Of what you are
There's an answer
If you reach into your soul
And the sorrow that you know
Will melt away

I don't know, Mariah. I've been reaching into my soul for months, and the sorrow may be lessening, but I'm afraid I can't say it has melted away:

And then a hero comes along
With the strength to carry on
And you cast your fears aside
And you know you can survive
So when you feel like hope is gone
Look inside you and be strong
And you'll finally see the truth
That a hero lies in you

I felt this today. Strength. Through all the discomfort, there was an undercurrent of strength. Of I-can-do-this-ness. On my bike this morning in the bitter wind, in my frustrating work meeting, in my TRX class, in yoga this evening. I could feel myself in there, fighting, for me:

It's a long road
When you face the world alone
No one reaches out a hand
For you to hold
You can find love
If you search within yourself
And the emptiness you felt
Will disappear

But I guess I gotta keep searching within myself, because I still feel emptiness. I still feel the "how could he have left me?" and "why did I invest so much in something so precarious?" But then how was I to know that love could be precarious? I'm here to say that it can be when you're with someone who only partly surrenders to it, and take it from me, if there's a part of you that knows that's what's happening in your relationship, do yourself a favor and get out now:

Lord knows
Dreams are hard to follow
But don't let anyone
Tear them away
Hold on
There will be tomorrow
In time
You'll find the way

I know that in time I'll find the way, but in the meantime, I'm heading into the holidays more alone than I've been, with the exception of my kids, in my adult life...

Love Takes Time

Earlier this week, when I showed up at Speed to teach my yoga class, the instructor before me was cooling down her cyclists with this tune playing in the background. It's been with me ever since -- I mean it comes and goes, but it hasn't gone away.

How to explain this? It could just be the insipid lyrics and catchy, pop tune. But I'm inclined to think there's more to it than that.

Feeling into it this morning, this is what I'm getting: although the healthiest, loveliest part of me knows that love is abundant and I'm just as worthy of it as anyone else and that all I need to do is be clear about what I want and it will come, there's another less lovely, less healthy part that sometimes likes to have its say. And that part tends to use language like "I shouldn't have..." and "What if I hadn't..." and "Maybe if I just..." and other such phrases that feed into the idea that things need to happen a certain way, what I do controls (or helps control) what happens, and that there are right and wrong choices and if you make the wrong one, you're left alone with only your regrets to keep you company.

Seems to me that is largely the voice that Mariah is listening to here:

Love takes time

To heal when you're hurting so much

Couldn't see that I was blind

To let you go

I can't escape the pain

Inside

'Cause love takes time

I don't wanna be here

I don't wanna be here alone

Sorry, Mariah. Although you and your voice are beautiful, your message doesn't help reinforce the beliefs I want to have about the world and what is possible in my own life. I have to trust that if I let go of someone, yeah, I might be lonely, and I might be blind to what is coming next, but I can have faith that if I'm following my heart, love will find me in no time.