Where I am with all that

Honestly this has been the best, most genuinely “soul filled with peace” holiday season I have had in years.

I didn’t mope about my past, I didn’t pick apart my present day, and I didn’t fret about my future. I quite simply was “right here, right now.”

I won’t be able to express within the confines of the English language how much acceptance is in my heart. And if I had feathered wings I would fly.

I have gunned for the bright side through counseling with gurus and reading self-help books, and writing positive affirmations to launch me forward. I’ve fallen short, pressed on, gained ground, lost a shoe, found it, lost my flashlight, and so on.

And then in a moment of grace in late November a simple yet profound conversation with a very special friend transformed me while driving on a highway in the middle of the afternoon. It changed me inside once and for all. It changed me forever. I know this to my core.

Most of all it transformed me out of dread of the holidays, which have for various reasons over the past four or five years been a dark and melancholy time.

I just knew in that moment on the long drive to where we were going that everything I’d been through had finally come to rest in a good and quiet place.

It was like I turned off a switch and turned on another and there was no need to go back in that room again.

This is not to say I won’t make new resolutions and then regret it after I eat more pizza than I should, or that I won’t kick myself in the shin for—after the pizza binge--consuming the last two chocolate bars left over in the cupboard from my holiday stash.

I will make my promise list for 2015 that will no doubt include getting more exercise, eating regularly and with health paramount, saving more money, and practicing anger management when I find another nesting hole in a box.

I will make good on my list and I will not. I’m teetering right now, having just eaten a second butter tart after I vowed to give the last three to my dad.

I will for sure make good on that squirrel, whose menacing carcass is still on the loose in my garage, having found its way into boxes of old dishes and, yes, into another sleeping bag I had missed when I raided the shelves of all manner of possible rodent attractions.

Who knew one sleeping bag held that much white fluffy insulation?

Who knew a squirrel could shred that stuff into such a high volume disaster, now strewn all over the garage floor when, in momentary madness I channeled my inner child tantrum and flung fuzz everywhere in another attempt to thwart my nemesis.

Hans Christian Anderson once penned, “Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”

I think I’m there.

I sure could use a live trap though.