I dunno. Last year, I was neck deep in the momentous law suit with Craig. I was bearing the burden of coming up with all the receipts and all the proff of money down the drain, and so I really hadn't thought--for real--about life once that was all behind me.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd fantasized, but the fantasies were so far away, and unrealized, that I couldn't use them as any more than a weak visualization tool. But, as the final two months of 2005 wore on, I began doing the projects I'd promised myself I'd do "when things were past," and I began giving myself permission to spend money again, and have a lifestyle again, even if a modest one.
It's not that I had good luck in court. I didn't. I bet on a bad horse, lawyer-wise, and it was a painful effort, and a lesson in the machismo and old-boy-ism of the court system. But still, I found a place I love, and I have my dog, Joy, and so, I set sail from there.
The Sunday before Thanksgiving, my sister Joanna called to tell me that our step-mother had been rushed to the hospital with a brain aneurism. As that day wore on, I finally got a chance to speak with my father, though he was nearly unable to speak. Ruth, my step-mother, had already been read her last rites, and my father was trying to cope with losing her that day.
Suddenly, a shard of hope cut through his despair as the family spoke with a new doctor. Ruth was moved to UCSF for an emergency operation to stop the hemorraging and repair the damage.
Over the next four weeks or so, my father's emotions were pushed and pulled as Ruth's health and her prognosis waxed and waned. This time of pain stradled the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
As I watched our little fragmented family make its usual holiday plans, I realized we were doing it in anything but "the usual" way. We are a family of four divorced individuals. My parents are divorced, I am divorced, and my dear sister finally succumbed to divorce as well this past year. Due to our extended family challenges, we often manage to drag Christams out until as far off as April. Not so this 2005 season.
This season, we managed to be all together in some semblance--a happy semblance, mind you--within as little as two days of Christmas. Our holiday included Joanna and Joe, her wonderful new man; Joe's parents, Mona and Nathan; my mother Annie; Joanna's long-time friends Alicia and Doug; myself; and my father. And, Joanna and I (Joanna in particular) were able to provide support and love for my father as he coped with Ruth's health. I was so proud of us. We overcame the need to hold out for a "pretend perfect" Christmas, and what we got instead was a beautiful, real, loving, tender holiday season.
My father lost--we lost--Ruth a few days after Christmas. It was the 27th, and when the phone call came to Joanna first, she and Joe had just walked in to our mother's house for our late celebration with her. I was there, and we were all devastated by the news. We were three hours away from my father. It was only five days to their 22nd wedding anniversary.
In these months since the tumultuous, emotional, challenging, uplifting, last days of 2005, I've gotten some things I'd been truly wishing for. I'd been alone for those two years since Craig and I split, and I was isolated and longing to share my days with somebody. Now I've found a great companion with whom to share many things I enjoy, and things he enjoys. Joanna and I have been seeing so much more of each other and of our father, too. Christmas was a moment of reflection in a way it never had been before. Not the holiday, but the feeling. I promised myself I would keep it with me, from now on.
I reflect upon those two years of intense fighting for what was mine; fighting for what was taken from me when Craig and I split, and I know that I have something that I didn't recognize two years ago. I have happiness and family. The distance of time required was nearly exactly two years before I could see how much I have. But, I do now realize, and that is everything.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd fantasized, but the fantasies were so far away, and unrealized, that I couldn't use them as any more than a weak visualization tool. But, as the final two months of 2005 wore on, I began doing the projects I'd promised myself I'd do "when things were past," and I began giving myself permission to spend money again, and have a lifestyle again, even if a modest one.
It's not that I had good luck in court. I didn't. I bet on a bad horse, lawyer-wise, and it was a painful effort, and a lesson in the machismo and old-boy-ism of the court system. But still, I found a place I love, and I have my dog, Joy, and so, I set sail from there.
The Sunday before Thanksgiving, my sister Joanna called to tell me that our step-mother had been rushed to the hospital with a brain aneurism. As that day wore on, I finally got a chance to speak with my father, though he was nearly unable to speak. Ruth, my step-mother, had already been read her last rites, and my father was trying to cope with losing her that day.
Suddenly, a shard of hope cut through his despair as the family spoke with a new doctor. Ruth was moved to UCSF for an emergency operation to stop the hemorraging and repair the damage.
Over the next four weeks or so, my father's emotions were pushed and pulled as Ruth's health and her prognosis waxed and waned. This time of pain stradled the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
As I watched our little fragmented family make its usual holiday plans, I realized we were doing it in anything but "the usual" way. We are a family of four divorced individuals. My parents are divorced, I am divorced, and my dear sister finally succumbed to divorce as well this past year. Due to our extended family challenges, we often manage to drag Christams out until as far off as April. Not so this 2005 season.
This season, we managed to be all together in some semblance--a happy semblance, mind you--within as little as two days of Christmas. Our holiday included Joanna and Joe, her wonderful new man; Joe's parents, Mona and Nathan; my mother Annie; Joanna's long-time friends Alicia and Doug; myself; and my father. And, Joanna and I (Joanna in particular) were able to provide support and love for my father as he coped with Ruth's health. I was so proud of us. We overcame the need to hold out for a "pretend perfect" Christmas, and what we got instead was a beautiful, real, loving, tender holiday season.
My father lost--we lost--Ruth a few days after Christmas. It was the 27th, and when the phone call came to Joanna first, she and Joe had just walked in to our mother's house for our late celebration with her. I was there, and we were all devastated by the news. We were three hours away from my father. It was only five days to their 22nd wedding anniversary.
In these months since the tumultuous, emotional, challenging, uplifting, last days of 2005, I've gotten some things I'd been truly wishing for. I'd been alone for those two years since Craig and I split, and I was isolated and longing to share my days with somebody. Now I've found a great companion with whom to share many things I enjoy, and things he enjoys. Joanna and I have been seeing so much more of each other and of our father, too. Christmas was a moment of reflection in a way it never had been before. Not the holiday, but the feeling. I promised myself I would keep it with me, from now on.
I reflect upon those two years of intense fighting for what was mine; fighting for what was taken from me when Craig and I split, and I know that I have something that I didn't recognize two years ago. I have happiness and family. The distance of time required was nearly exactly two years before I could see how much I have. But, I do now realize, and that is everything.
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