This is my favorite time of year.  It always has been, as far back as I remember, even with the presents under the tree were few. 

I’m 42 years old.  For half my life, one constant has been Christmas with Robyn.  Sometimes it’s just been her and me.  Sometimes with my parents and siblings.  One year with aunts, uncles and cousins in Illinois.  Many years with my ex-wife and my stepdaughter and Tatiana.  But throughout the previous twenty-one Christmases the constant has been Robyn and me.

I’ve thought about that a bit recently.  Robyn is twenty-two today, a number, which, according to a Patton Oswalt stand-up routine, requires no particular significance.  Robyn lives roughly 770 miles away from me, with a boyfriend who I like well enough, except for that stereotypical Daddyism that he’s dating my daughter, because, of course, no one is good enough for her (but he does seem to sorta be).  And I don’t know what the future holds, but I see that time in the future when Christmas will happen without the two of us together in the same place.  That happens.  There’s nothing wrong with it.  But it sucks.

I have a audio tape somewhere around here of one of our Christmases in Germany.  It consists mostly of Robyn opening presents and some conversation between the two of us.  That is one of the most memorable Christmases I’ve had.  There were few presents around the tree (not under it, because that year my tree was one of those desk ones that was maybe a foot tall), and I believe we ate dinner at a co-worker’s house.  But there were two people who just love Christmas, and I look forward to this year, when, although the presents under the tree for her and me will be few, we will still enjoy the time together, the too much food, the watching of Tatiana finally get to realize what Santa brought her.  And we’ll go watch Les Miserables together, because, really, what says Christmas more than watching the wondrous Eponine get dicked over for the vapid Cosette.

For better or worse, Robyn is definitely my daughter.  I can’t wait until she is here and A Christmas Story plays constantly on TV, until she eats nearly half the mashed potatoes by herself, until one of the first things she does when she gets in the house is check the presents under the tree (sorry there’ll be so few for you, kiddo), and she bugs me to open the one present on Christmas Eve.  I’ve cherished every Christmas we’ve had together.  Every moment of time we’ve had together.  I know the older you get and the more you have your own life and own people that those times will decrease, but I will gladly accept what time we can share.

And, uh, I’ll try not to make you walk three miles in a Chicago June to eat some pig face.

So, despite it being a birthday of no significance, I still wish a happy birthday to my little Yabbut, the best December gift I have or will ever receive. 

I am posting this blog I had on another site.

Today we held a service for Dane.  Missa started off with Psalms 29, 24, and 23, and then Matthew 6.  She also added some comments of her own.  Then I came next.  First I read the first section of W. H. Auden's "Funeral Blues"—
 
I only included the first part, because if I were to include the second, it would have been a very strange reading for my child.
 



Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public

    doves, 

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.
 

After that I read something I had written last night:



Usually when there is a service like this, it is a celebration of a person's life and an opportunity for people to share memories of that life.  Today it is hard to do, because we lost Dane before we ever got to know him.

 


Dane, you're here today, in this urn, ashes formed from the smallness of your body, which was wrapped in a slip of a baby's blankets.  There is so little of you.  There were no bones to burn, and you never had a chance for your bones to grow.  You never had a chance for your bones to break, from a fall from a tree or from getting hit badly on a football field.

 


Today, Dane, I do not get to share memories of the first steps you took or the first time you stumbled and fell, hitting your head on the entertainment center, with me trying to figure out a way for your mother to not notice the small indentation on your forehead.

 
Today, I can't talk about your first day of school and how much it upset your mother.  I can't talk about how proud you were when you came home with your first 'A' or how you sulked into the house afraid after you had your first fight.  I can't talk about your first crush or the time you woke up late and went to school, only noticing as you sat down in class that you had two different shoes on, hoping nobody would notice.




I wish today I could tell about how you played in Little League, and you always tried so hard, but secretly you were mad at me, because the bad vision you apparently inherited from me.  I wish I could talk about how excited and happy you were after you got your first girlfriend and how you stayed in your room, playing sad music for hours at a time, after you broke up with your first girlfriend.

 


You and I would watch baseball and go to movies and talk about anything from books to boogers, and we would blame farts on each other.  There would be times when you would think I just don't understand you, and we would walk around each other not talking for days, and we would share a small joke, probably on your mom or your sisters, and we would wonder what the hell we had fought about.



 
I can never tell about the day you met the love of your life, how you were so nervous when you proposed to her, running around the hotel the day of your wedding, wondering what the hell happened to the ring.  I can never express the joy you would have felt when you told me about the birth of my grandchild.

 


I wish I was not standing here, talking about you…wish that I had succumbed many years before you; wish that you were remembered by your children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, that your life had been long and joyful and sad and fun and memorable.

 


I had so many dreams for you, and I looked forward to you changing those dreams, telling me I don't understand who you are.  I wish I had the opportunity to not understand who you are.  Today I have this urn and some pictures and a doctor's words cutting through my heart.  And I have January 11, 2007, the day you were born and the day you died, and the day that will forever be etched in my mind, the day of my son, Dane Xavier, who I love, though I never got a chance to meet you.  

 


After that we played Johnny Cash's version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water".  Robyn then read what she had written, which covered some of the things I had written, but from a sister's point of view (including showing him where Dad's Playboys were).

 


Bella didn't want to say anything, but she had put together a collage for Dane.  After Robyn finished, we played Willie Nelson's version of "Amazing Grace".  Then we in turn went to the table where Dane's ashes were (in addition to a box Missa had made that included all the things we associated with him, including an outfit, things she had cut out, and other things).  We each blew out a candle.
 


And that was how we spent our day, putting our child to rest and moving on with our grief.

But, wait, there's more!  The next day I have to open the store, as does Brandy.  So we get there and conversation is a little awkward.  At least Robin isn't working.  Everything is fine, and my family actually comes into see me, and we get along okay, which turns out to be a very good thing.  Around two, after the lunch crowd has slowed down, I clean the fry vats and take the old oil to dump it.  Well, I pick up the container to pour it, but it slips from my hands and falls.  Oil shoots up in the air and lands on me, mainly on my arms and shirt.  I run out of the dumpster area, yelling and pulling my shirt off, streaking past some unsuspecting old people.  Luckily, I have a change of clothes in the back, so I am able to put another shirt on.  The only problem is my arms are in a lot of pain.  And there's nobody to take me to the hospital.  So the working assistant manager calls the incoming assistant manager to take me.  It's Robin.  She takes me to the hospital, and they give me drugs.  Whee!  My burns aren't bad at all, but the drugs have knocked me on my ass (I don't handle drugs well).  I can't help myself from constantly apologizing to Robin for fucking her roommate.  Finally, she takes me back to the store and I fall asleep in the lobby.  Somebody calls my family and they take me to the house, and I go to sleep on the couch for about twelve hours.  And whenever my mother chastises me for marrying the first girl I ever slept with, I can always blame it on her, because it probably never would have happened if she hadn't kicked me out.

Nineteen years ago I stood in a courthouse in Belleville, Illinois, waiting for the judge to dissolve my marriage.  My wife was not with me.  At the time I had no idea where she was.  I had filed for divorce a year earlier, then had spent much of the time trying to track her down to get her to sign the divorce papers.  She signed them finally and that was that.  Nine years later I dated her long distance for a bit, in a foolish thought that she might have matured.  She hadn’t.  I last saw her in 2003.  I haven’t talked to her in maybe six years and haven’t communicated with her at all in about three.

So it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense that I am writing this to thank her.

She was not a good wife.  At the time, I probably wouldn’t give myself too much credit as a husband.  We married too young, and one of the things she said when she left was that she was too young to be a wife and a mother.  I don’t know about her as a wife nowadays--as far as I know she’s not married (although she did marry and divorce after me).  But next year she turns 40, and she is still nothing as a mother.

I divorced in July and then moved to Germany in October.  Between then and 2004, it was just Robyn and me, not counting summers she would spend at Grandma’s or that horrible eight-month period when I had a three-week TDY to Las Vegas, a three-month deployment to Italy, and a new assignment to Nebraska.  It was probably not the best thing for Robyn, and I have had everybody and their mother and MY mother tell me, “a girl needs a mother.”  But if it wasn’t for Brandy being the suckass parent she was (and in this case, it looks like I ended up marrying somebody like my father, instead of my mother), then I wouldn’t have had the experiences I did with Robyn.

I had a best friend (and still have the same one), but for a long time there, right or wrong, Robyn was pretty much my best friend.  I, for the most part, raised her alone, so a lot of what makes her her comes from me, so we were into a lot of the same things. 

I’ve talked about that before...but the thing is that those trips, those concerts, those time exploring caves, those moments we shared getting irritated by the same people doing stupid things, those wouldn’t have happened, at least not the same way, if Brandy had been a better parent.  It’s a shitty thing to say that, because I benefited because of it, while I can’t say the same thing for Robyn. 

Maybe people are right.  Maybe a kid needs her mother.  Maybe, despite the awesomeness that is her, she would be a better person if she had her mother around.  Then again, maybe I would be a better person if my father had been around.  But the way I am a parent and the way I am with women are directly because I made a conscious decision not to be like my father.  Who knows who I might be if he had been in my life as more than a better-forgotten disk of angry poems?

So thank you, Brandy.  You’re a determined, purposeful person, who has apparently achieved what she wanted in life.  But you’re absolute shit as a parent, and I thank you for it.

I was chatting online with a friend today when she told me to hold on, because there was a knock on the door.  I tinkered around, doing other things, still trying to work myself into doing anything, since I’ve been in a bit of a stupor for the last five days, ever since I tried to address my Diet Coke intake.

When she came back she told me that was the sheriff’s department, letting her know a family member had committed suicide and they needed her to identify the body.

I’ve been thinking about that all day.  In large part, because I feel bad for her, knowing she already has other things to worry about, without the addition of this added on.  But I’ve been thinking about the issue in general.

I’ve never really come close to suicide.  I’ve thought about it; it’s hard for me to imagine a person in the United States not thinking about it at least passingly.  I did think on occasion that it might be easier if I just exited, stage left.  Junior high was a rough time for me.  I don’t know, really, how I made it through.  I imagine if I didn’t meet my best friend there, I don’t know what might have happened.  I never took a pill or held a knife to my wrist or anything like that.  But I had a pre-written suicide note, just in case (that was the type of kid I was).  I don’t know what happened to that note, but I remember that it was fairly all-purpose, just overall explaining why I committed suicide in generic terms.

The next time I encountered suicide or a suicide attempt was a few years later.  I had graduated high school and my family had moved from Fort Smith to Barling, but for a while I stayed at our old house by myself (my work was very close).  My friend (and later to be wife and ex-wife) burst into my bedroom one night.  This was a dream I had been having on a regular basis, but reality was much difference, as I was, one, not expecting anybody to be coming into the house, and, two, I wasn’t ready for that look on her face.

Her roommate, who was a boss of mine, had made a half-hearted attempt at suicide, because of a guy.  I sat up and listened to my friend and walked back with her to her house, which was quite a distance.  Her roommate ended up being all right.  When I came back to the large, empty house, I played the last two minutes of Bruce Springsteen’s “Jungleland” over and over and over.

September 1, 1996.  His name was Cory Huper.  I met him on the plane going to Germany where we were both going to be stationed.  Tomorrow would have been his fortieth birthday, but he’s 24 forever, because on September 1, 1996, he killed himself.  I was not his best friend nor he mine, but I thought then and I think now that we were pretty good friends.  His death haunts me to this day.  I feel guilty because I remember in stunning detail one day when we were sitting around looking at new regulations which we get tested on every year, and they had just added suicide rates and discussion into them.  And I made a joke about how everyone would expect me to be one to commit suicide and that he never would be.  If you had known him, you would understand.  I can remember very few moments when he wasn’t laughing or smiling, causing you to think he was the happiest guy in the world.  I know, of course, that a smile and a joke can hide a lot. 

That sucks to think about, but what really bothers me is thinking that I could have done something to prevent him from killing himself.  I don’t know to this day exactly why he committed suicide, although I have my guesses, which I won’t go into.  I just remember one night we got together with some other people, drinking, and at some point others left, and I was going to sleep on his other bed, because my apartment was a bit away from his dorm room (I had my oldest daughter Robyn living with me, but she was spending the night at a friend’s house).  And he said some things...and I guess I was just so drunk that I took everything as a joke and laughed it off.  I am not so full of hubris to think that if I had responded the correct way that Cory would be alive today, but it still bothers me.

I have some dark times.  I don’t believe I suffer from depression, but I do feel depressed sometimes.  I’m not going to a doctor about it, because I’ve been to doctors and I’ve seen them in action, and I think in many cases I’m just as well off throwing a dart at a board.  Right now is difficult for me, because my daughter is away from me for much of the summer, spending it with her mother, and she’s enjoying herself, which is good.  But she’s not very good on the phone, only being four, so for the most part I am in this house alone, and the loneliness is harsh.  And strangely, my reaction to this is not to cling to others, but to regress away from them--not completely, but some.  And I find myself reacting strongly to certain people’s comments or feeling hurt when I think people are just communicating with me because they need something. 

But that’s just a minuscule part of my life.  One of the great things (sometimes) about me is that I know myself very well.  And I am able to recover quickly.  Today is one of those days that makes me realize I don’t have to regress, I don’t have to be alone, and I can hang on...and I always have that thought of Cory that makes me stop and think.

Sixteen years I’ve been thinking about what I could have said to make things different.  And it’s a useless thought...but it’s only useless for Cory.  I don’t care if you don’t like me, if you barely know me, if you don’t think I’m the kind of guy you can talk to, if you’re afraid...if anybody who reads this, who knows me, a lot or a little, every has thoughts like that, I would rather you bother me with it.  I come home to a dark house with no little girl doing strange dances or making up funny songs, and my oldest daughter is creating her own life 700 miles away, but I know Tatiana is coming back.  And I know I will see Robyn again.  And while many, many, many people have a life far more difficult than mine, they still have something to hang onto, something to look forward to, and I say this as much for me as for you, that you should contact me before you make that decision.  Because I don’t want to wait another sixteen years again.

“Beneath the city two hearts beat
Soul engines running through a night so tender
In a bedroom locked
In whispers of soft refusal
And then surrender
In the tunnels uptown
The Rat's own dream guns him down
As shots echo down them hallways in the night
No one watches when the ambulence pulls away
Or as the girl shuts out the bedroom light

Outside the street's on fire
In a real death waltz
Bewtween what's flesh and what's fantasy
And the poets down here
Don't write nothing at all
They just stand back and let it all be
And in the quick of the night
They reach for their moment
And try to make an honest stand
But they wind up wounded
Not even dead
Tonight in Jungleland”  -- Bruce Springsteen

The truth is there are many years that when you look back on your life--you just don’t remember them.  Sure, maybe you did something special that year, like the years Robyn and I went on our multi-state vacation or the year I finally got my Bachelor’s degree.  But those are events.  I don’t recall them because of the year, and chances are that as I get older it may take me a while to remember exactly what year they occurred in...if I remember at all. 

If I remember a year it’s because of something monumental.  Sometimes it’s good (births of my daughters), but more often it’s because of something bad (1992 and my Summer of Hell; 2007, when we lost Dane).  I definitely know that 2011 is one of those years I will remember, but I can’t say honestly if I will look back at it as a bad year.  It certainly has a lot in common with my Summer of Hell year (wife leaving me, financial trouble, poor decisions--I didn’t have the week in the hospital I had then, but I did get a divorce out of the way).  But in 1992 I was devastated (I was also young and did not realize then that my wife leaving me was a very good thing).  This year, devastation lasted maybe a week.  It was a long time coming, and I just wasn’t the person who finally made it happen--I would thank her for it if she hadn’t done it in the worst way possible.

I don’t know if my poor decision making this year was as bad as it was in 1992.  Then, I agreed to go out with a friend of my sister, a decision I almost instantly regretted, but something which I was not able to extricate myself from for months (I have never been one who has been able to end things).  My experience with her should have warned me never to date a friend of my sister, but it took one more try for that to sink in.  I started to date somebody about six weeks after my ex left--we just had a timing issue, though, and never were really able to get together, which was okay, as I realized I just wasn’t ready for a relationship at the time.  That started a little two-month phase in which I apparently earned the title of manwhore.  I don’t think it was warranted, and I certainly don’t think it could be used for somebody to alleviate their guilt of earlier actions, but it was what it was.  I needed to go through that to realize that it wasn’t me and what I really wanted...and what I really deserved.  Once I married somebody before we really were ready for it (although her life after proved she was never ready for being a parent), and once I married a person for who she could be rather than who she actually was, and she never became that person she could be. 

So 2011 is the year my second marriage ended.  It’s also hopefully the year I found a true love, somebody who I am in love with for who she is now, rather than what I think she could be.  I have good feelings about it, and I hope I’m not writing something next year about how she dumped me, thinking I’m a huge douchebag.

I don’t do good with resolutions (looking at last years, I think I need to read about 30 books by tonight to reach my goal), but I will write something tomorrow about goals for next year.

I’ve said “I love you” to three women in a romantic sense.  To some, that might seem too many.  To others, too few.  I’m not sure of that myself, but I know I meant it when I said it to each of them (at least I meant it at some point in our relationships--there were times during the tail end of two of the relationships when the statement was more of a reflex, like flinching when you peripherally see something coming at your head).

Two of the relationships resulted in marriage.  And divorce.  Just because there is something about that other person that inspires love doesn’t mean there is enough to keep it.  The other relationship ended because real life sucks.  If I was twenty years younger I probably would have not allowed distance and responsibility prevent me from going to her.  But I’m not...so love was conquered by a thousand miles, parenthood, jobs, and the overall suckiness of being an adult.

I’ve been thinking about love recently.  And every time I do, the same image pops into my head.  Not an image, really.  More of a short piece of footage.  In it, our hero (that would be me) is walking.  It is night.  There is a light breeze caught between summer and autumn.  Streetlights flicker on Greenwood Avenue as stars struggle to be seen.  There is a graveyard I walk by--sometimes it is to my left, sometimes to my right.  It is a path I had walked many times in my life (although not in more than 22 years).  That is what I walked on and off for about two years either to or from seeing the girl who would be the first woman to whom I declared my love.  When we first met we didn’t like each other.  Then we did.  Then I loved her.  She did not love me.  I cannot say even now whether she came to love me or whether I just overwhelmed her into submission.  She was not a woman I should have loved.  I see that now.  I saw it nine years ago when I thought that time might make better people of us all, and we dated long distance for roughly sixteen months (which in real time equaled, what, a month or two?).

So why does my mind keep coming back to that film strip of that kid walking past the graveyard?  Because that kid was sure.  Yeah, that kid was wrong, but he was so sure.  He had no doubts about his love.  About what his love could do.  It was worth the bloody fists against the wall.  The nights sighing on the roof.  The knowing eyerolls of his friends.  And the damnedest thing of all is that if I could go back I don’t know if I would tell that kid he is about to make a big mistake.  Or if I would just let him enjoy that moment.  And be jealous that he still has it.

I was going through my paperwork, trying to get rid of stuff, so that I don’t feel like I should be on an episode of Hoarders.

I discovered probably my favorite poem of mine (note: I never really mastered poetry, and I think my creative writing instructor pretty much ruined this poem, so I am bringing it somewhat back to what it was).  This was written sometime during 1992 or 1993.

For Alicia’s by the ocean’s edge,
where misted waves melt in black sand,
among bleeding white rocks and
dead fish.
Under a glutton moon
I slept, beneath the pier
while brine lapped at my face
like the dog I bought you last year.

For Alicia, whose painted toes dangle
in the water,
I wrote a poem in the sand
with my toe, calloused and red.
The tide swallowed my words
and etched them across the beach,
like your streak-splatter paintings
I never understood.

For Alicia, standing in the surf,
Venus in her seashell sinking.

Since I am avoiding doing my Hoarders-avoidance, here’s another one I kind of like, probably written in 1995 or 1996.

How can my heart be hungry
When you’ve eaten it away?
How come you never listen
to the words I never say?
You’re the wall I beat at
With the fists of a ghost.
You have a seven-course meal
While I’m nibbling at toast.
You fit me in round holes
When you know that I’m square.
I’m left alone crying foul,
While you play at the fair.
I’ve been trying so hard
To get this feeling inside,
And you’re out in the open,
Looking for some place to hide.
I’m trying to give up
What we never had,
‘Cause it seems you only
Want me when I’m feeling sad.
When I say I love you,
you just say, “whatever.”
My money’s in the jukebox;
This song goes on forever.

I also discovered this second part of a poem written when I was 12 or 13, in the eight grade.  It’s pretty bad, but I probably felt really bad ass because I used the word “hell.” 



The tree is old and dying,
its leaves have all fell.
Branches gently crying,
Is it Heaven or is it Hell.

The tree is dead now,
May it rest in peace.
Do they bewail its last bow,
Or do they give the least?

Yeah, it was pretty clear I was never going to be a poet.

First thing--these are not resolutions.  The thing about resolutions is that there’s almost a certainty of failure, as if the word “resolution” itself means it won’t happen.  A look at last year’s resolutions gives truth to that.  Instead, I am going to just take a swing at goals.  A goal is an accomplishable thing.  While it is my intent to accomplish these goals within the following year (and with some, much sooner), if I do not, I can say to myself that, as a goal, I can continue to work on it even after the year is done.

Goal Number One: First goal is to have my girlfriend move in--quite honestly I think we might have already made some progress on this, if it wasn’t for the fact that she has a lease with her apartment.  Perhaps some people may think this is too soon, but I know when I am in love and I know what I want, and I didn’t just fall for the first girl who came along.  The last time I fell in love with somebody for who she could be (and never became); this time I fell in love with the person who is.

Goal Number Two: Get a job.  This is actually one of those I would call a resolution, if the word didn’t have the negative connotation.  Or maybe a necessity.  Basically, what it comes down to is I need a job, and I am going to get one as soon as possible.

Goal Number Three: This one is actually another sort of time-sensitive one.  Also, one that I failed pretty miserably at last year, part of which I blame on school.  I would like to read 100 books this year, and I didn’t do it last year, mainly because of all the reading I had to do with school (which if measured out, probably equaled more than 100 books).  I have finished one book already this year, plus am a third of the way through another and just started a third.  Hopefully I can continue that trend.  I think if I do what I used to do, just have a book with me at all times and sneak in a read when I am able, I should do it easily.  Also, if I start listening to audiobooks again, that will help (I think I have at least 20 or so that I have not listened to).

Goal Number Four: Live a healthier lifestyle.  I set a goal to get down to a certain weight last year.  I didn’t meet it, although I did lose over 30 pounds and worked out more.  I am going to be less concerned about what the scale says and more about how I feel.  I did get a little in Christmas eating mode, and I have to get back to how I was eating and exercising at the beginning of November.  Tomorrow, I start up with my exercise programs (incidentally I hope to finish off the turkey sandwiches tonight--strange how that worked out).

Goal Number Five: Write a novel.  In all honesty, I would like to do this within the year, but I think the pressure makes it more difficult.  I did prove to myself last summer that I could write well--now I just have to write what I want to write.  To be honest, I have several ideas, but I already know which one I am going to start with.  Writing begins this weekend.

Goal Number Six: Do new things.  I have (somewhere) my Farm Purchase Log (or what others would call their bucket list.  Farm Purchase Log?  Buying the farm--get it?  Shaddup).  While I would like to do things on that (and have actually marked off a few items on it), the trying new things doesn’t have to be anything grandiose. It can be just something I’ve never done before, no matter what.  The last few years I’ve allowed one part of my life that dragged me down drag all of my life down, and while it is easy to blame that on somebody else, the truth is I let it happen.  No longer going to do that.

Goal Number Seven: Spend more time teaching Tatiana.  At one point I wanted to home-school her, but I just don’t think that is going to be possible.  However, I do want to get her ahead of the curve, and quite honestly, the school system (not just here, but in every place we’ve lived recently) is shitty, more concerned with getting the kids to pass one test during the year rather than actually teaching them.  I don’t want her to go through her life being a drone.

Goal Number Eight: Release hate and spread love.  I have had plenty of reason to hate recently.  I’ve never been one to embrace hate; I’ve always found that when you succumb to hate, you find some redeeming quality about the person you hate, and that just throws yourself out of whack.  I do have somebody in my life I am closer to hating than anybody else has ever come near (and, no, it’s probably not the person you think), but I am trying to move beyond that.  I will not forget.  I probably won’t forgive.  But I have to set it aside, because letting somebody have that much control over you gives them power, and this person does not deserve power.  Also, I want to continue my life’s goal of seeing the good in others and embracing them for their strengths rather than denigrating them for their weaknesses.  We are all here a short time, and I, at least, will not allow myself to waste my life in allowing negative emotions to consume me or to let anything prevent me from letting the ones I love know it.

I think that’s enough for now.  I, of course, have many other goals that I could list, some of which I probably don’t want many people to read and others which you might not understand, but I think these are a good start.