And to that, I say thank you.
From the bottom of my broken heart.
Ha. That’s a cliche lyric, but in this case it works.

But on to my point.

Today I received a text from somebody, telling me he was sorry that this weekend must be especially hard for me.

And I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why this weekend was any harder than all the others.

Goodness, but I’d already weathered Thanksgiving. I counted my blessings with the kind of paranoia that belongs to those who’ve been robbed. I held onto them with a tight fist, like a child with their few sweaty, dirty pennies.

And I woke up Christmas morning with the realization that no amount of work I’d done on stage could prepare me for the acting job before me: Christmas was still Christmas to all my nieces and nephews and I didn’t want to change that.

And then there was my anniversary. Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.
My. Anniversary.

Drew had sent me an email that morning which basically said there are no words. And he’s right. But God knows I try. Desperately. And maybe one of these days I’ll dwarf what’s happened to me with some kind of powerful syntax.

But on my anniversary I kept telling myself that it was just another day. It’s like I was catholic and it was own version of the Hail Mary and maybe it did something because it sort of was just another day. You know, morning. Afternoon. Eventually the sun goes back to bed and you should too.

But who am I kidding? because no, it wasn’t a normal day. It was Opposite Day only this time the universe agreed with the outcome and there was no option to turn it back to right side up.

So yeah, those days were hard and horrible, but a lot of these days are like that in the sense that it’s ALL a freaking long, slow climb up out of grief.

And then there are the forgettable days that stand out too. Because somebody mentioned to you that “it must be so weird to have had somebody and now suddenly not.” And you politely agree because you know that they meant well by it, but Come On. Weird is a three-legged cat. Or a person who actually wants to eat olives. Or that picture of the man who is part tree that was shocking the world wide interwebs for a while there. But this–THIS–isn’t just weird, thank you.

And there’s every day and all the facebook statuses I read that remind me of how most people, it seems, didn’t lose the bet with love. And I get it, I do, because I was one of them, too, not too long ago. But right now I’m a long way from “Jessica Latshaw is spending the evening with the love of her life. Blah blah blah. Makeout makeout makeout.”

And I have to say the contrast isn’t awesome.

So I update about my own loves.
Family.
Friends.
Music.
Peanut butter and jelly.

And not necessarily in that order. If I happen to have an exceptional PB&J, it takes precedence, you know.

But again, back to that text. I mean, it’s Saturday, and Saturdays are hard, but so are Tuesdays, for that matter.

So finally I told my friend Christian about the cryptic text. He thought for a few seconds before he nailed it right on it’s big fat dumb head.

Valentine’s Day.
Oh, right.
That.

Just perfect.

But this year, it can still be about love, right? Maybe nothing pink, nothing involving doilies, but definitely a gutsy kind of love that keeps me from doing the dumb things that I now have every tool to do, and do quite well.

Sounds like God’s love to me.
And people’s love, too.
Because I’ve got some heroes in my life who won’t quit crowding me with care, and I’ll die trying to thank them enough.

So yeah, happy Valentine’s Day.

And here’s to this time next year not looking anything like it does now.

There is in every true woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity. –Washington Irving

I read that and it catches my heart. And everything–my skin, my lips, the back of my neck–is alert, trying to make that spark blaze. God knows it’s dark enough. And God knows I want that spark to spread like those fires in the mountains of California; to eat up everything else until it becomes the biggest thing about me.

Kindles.Beams. Blazes. Adversity. All of it catches my heart.

Kind of the way Christmas catches my heart every year.

But this time it’s different. There are things that usually excite me, things like trimming the tree and buying gifts, but my heart isn’t so much into that now. What I’d like to think about is what happened on that night. And you can say it was in December because we sing about it being then, or you can talk about how theologians go around bursting our bubbles as they prove that the famous silent night was actually in June, but really I don’t care about any of that so much.

And really, I don’t think that it was all that silent either. Not with the baby crying and all those animals milling about, and are we really supposed to believe that those shepherds were quiet? I’m betting they liked to talk, those guys. After all that time spent under a vast endless sky with only sheep for company don’t you think they were excited to talk about current events with Joseph and Mary and all those magi?

Though I don’t think Mary was talking back too much. She was too busy pondering the good things God was doing in her heart.

But whether or not those shepherds talked at that birth is irrelevant.

What I really care about is that it happened.

And what I care about right now is what it looked like.

The way society painted Mary with the staining color of shame. Joseph, who wanted to leave her, but decided to take a risk and spend a life on a dream and some faith in an angel’s words. The way that nothing went right that night; they couldn’t find a suitable place to have that baby, though not for lack of trying.

But this Christmas the thing that I’ve been repeating in my mind over and over again is that dirty little manger. The ugliness, the shabbiness, the bleakness of it all. How none of it seemed perfect, but God, was it humble. And that’s where God chose to place that innocent baby.

Not where it was orderly.

Not where it was perfect.

Not even where it was clean.

But in the midst of all of that, there was somebody perfect. Beautiful. Full of light and hope.

In that dirty little manger.

Which means that maybe in my life, my own dirty little manger, God can place something beautiful, full of light and hope…Which is what I like to think about this Christmas, if that’s okay.