So I sit here and mope a little about all of the things I imaged doing with my blood-kin over Christmas, and I mope about not seeing two childhood friends – something else that has happened every year for as long as I remember – and I consider the impossibility of nothing ever changing.  I mean, my perfect world can’t be a perfect world for everyone else.  Even if Jenny and I never left our parents’ house, we couldn’t make everyone else stay in the neighborhood, and we couldn’t have stopped our parents from dying, and Shawn or Pete probably would have passed us by if we said we were going to stay in that house forever, and then we wouldn’t have Blake and Eli, and I wouldn’t have the wonderful people I get to see in Atlanta in a few days.

Life happens.  Things change.  We (try to) adjust.  I seem to have done a lot of that this year, leaving Charlotte once again for Asheville once again.  The change has left a lot of gaps, a lot of voids.  It’s been so good to reconnect with folks I left behind up here, but again, life kept going.  We aren’t in our 20s (nor were some of you when I left) anymore, and we have different commitments and schedules…we have spouses and kids.  But we’re working it out.  We find lunch breaks and days off work, birthdays and holidays to celebrate.

Regarding Charlotte, my heart has been broken a lot.  And I realize that some people who have treated me fairly similarly have been regarded by me differently because I needed different things from them.  For example – someone who didn’t matter so much to me can mostly ignore me, and an occasional, “Hi, how’s it going?” here and there seems just fine.  But someone who meant so much more, someone I think of so much more often who seems to have flushed his or her phone down a toilet and his or her email password along with it – that smarts.  I get it: some people are not good at keeping in touch and some are.  Well, some people are good at hearing that silence and some aren’t.  I feel like I’ve gone through 1,000 breakups since June, and I’m really trying to take the hints because trying to keep some of those relationships going hurts too much.

Thanks to those of you who have filled the cracks and holes in my heart this year, to those of you who have stayed in touch, listened to me, cared for me, and spent time with me.  I love easily and broadly.  When life relocates me, I feel so rich knowing I have friends in states, counties, even countries aplenty.  (OK, technically I just know a girl in another country who hasn’t even accepted my Facebook friend request, but if I moved there, I think she would spend time with me.  And Amy Schumer said I could text her and she would answer.  Technically, she said that to everyone on Instagram, but I was included.)

I got to spend time with an old friend and a cousin and her family (also my family, really) in SC recently.  Those things never happened before this move.  Where one door closes, another one opens.  And I’m not too proud to climb through a window if the door is stuck.

I also realize that I am free…not incarcerated, not working in the military or elsewhere away from everyone I care about…not working at all at the moment.  Just able to sit here with that spouse I wished for for so long and write my little therapeutic blog.

I am grateful.

Merry Christmas Eve, happy Hanukkah, merry Christmas tomorrow, and happy new year soon.

Thanks for reading.