Holly Jolly Christmas 

It was 5 minutes to 5 on Friday -- the day the wheels were set in motion.  The separation petition had been drafted, reviewed and signed.  My asset and income statements had been filled out, updated and notarized.  All that was left was the filing fee, which I could now finally deliver after receiving my December bonus. 

The act of writing that check was an odd mixture of feelings -- the biggest was almost the delight I took in giving myself a present, perhaps the most valuable present I could ever receive.  It was a down payment on what would hopefully be a literal new lease on life, of freedom from the past and hope for a future.  There was also dread in knowing that L. (my STBX) would be hit with the stark realization that I have not be "kidding" about separation; that this is not some game; and that the hope for rebuilding the ruins of the past is gone.  I made the concession to wait for service to be made after Christmas.  No sense in spoiling the Yuletide spirit for L. and our extended families (our kids too, of course).

Later that evening, my daughter R. was feeling very down.  Her girlfriend, G., has been essentially forbidden to see R. due to their lesbian relationship.  G.'s mother has been relentless in her punishment and her attempts to turn G. straight.  R. can no longer see G. except in the very limited circumstance of occasional inter-school functions (G. lives 40 miles away) where they may casually run into each other.  No dates, no phone calls, not even attending church together.  I tried to raise her spirits by heading to the Plaza shopping area here in Kansas City.  During the holidays, the Plaza is a bustling, mutli-colored wonderland.  And the relatively warm temperatures that evening made it delightful. 

I think it helped take her mind off of her troubles.  And it allowed me to remember the joys of being on the Plaza many years pasts.  Since most of those memories were with L., the temptation would be to be those memories bittersweet.  But this evening, they were just sweet.  What's more, those memories combined with the hope that this season brings -- the promise of a gift, and of gifts given to celebrate a gift from heaven to earth.  I felt, for the first time in a long time,  I had been given a gift -- an irreplaceable gift of joy.  The joy of gratitude for so much I had been given.  Even the harsh, painful, joyless Christmases past seemed like ghosts, dispelled with a warm southern, December wind.  Tonight I felt love for my daughter, love for living, even love and compassion for my STBX.  There can only be one word for such gifts after all I feel I've suffered -- "miracle."