One of my best friends lived for some time with her great aunt in the finest home in which I have ever set foot.

It’s not that it was a mansion or anything, although I suspect by some definitions it was. Auntie was a wealthy woman, advanced in age and experience, and the widow of a founder of a large grocery store chain. Her home was modern, tucked like a jumbo gumdrop on the curved cul-de-sac window of an elaborate gingerbread-home-neighborhood in a wealthy Minnesotan suburb. From the outside it looked like your average run-of-the-mill parade home, as cookie-cutter and interchangeable as any McMansion. On the inside, it was anything but.

At the time, back in 1997, Dave and I were newlyweds and we had just purchased our first house. It was large, and fine, and I was utterly intimidated by it. When I went to visit my friend I had lived in my new home for several months, but the overwhelming majority of my belongings were still packed in boxes. I was so afraid that I would ruin my beautiful new house with my silly, shabby, adolescent stuff. I used to walk through the door of my own home and feel like an uninvited guest, or worse, like the girl invited out of pity, out of place among my fancy, rich, important peers. The modest apartment we’d moved from may have had sloping floors and a two foot gash through the front screen door, but it was home. It didn’t make me feel inferior, unworthy.

Auntie’s house changed my life. Even all these years later, I still recognize and honor the impact. I don’t know how to describe the decor, and that’s the point; She didn’t follow a single rule. She didn’t care what you thought, or how you defined her. She was patently original.

There was an entire room devoted to her ethnic roots, wallpapered in the colors and traditions of her home flag. There was art everywhere, and mostly in unexpected places - like above the dog bowl, or sideways and at eye-level next to the couch where you might like to lie. There were books everywhere, and places to sit and dream at every turn. Each room was markedly different. My favorite room, the one my friend set aside for me to sleep in, was wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling pictures of nude pinups from the 1920s and 30s, a mosaic of unabashed, unapologetic beauty in a long-gone era when that would have been considered especially daring. I fell asleep to dreams of women who felt no fear, no tethers, no stifling mandate to fit themselves into box after box built by others. Nothing in that house matched, and yet as a whole it formed the most appealing thing I have ever seen. I went home after that trip and unpacked every last one of my boxes. I made my house my own.

I’ve read so many posts lately by people searching for their voices, reaching to define themselves and their places in the ‘blogosphere.’ So many are on hiatus, planned or unplanned, or they’re feeling uncertain about what to say next. So many are worried about how they’ll be perceived. Some are worried about popularity, about contests and lists and rankings. Others are worried about hiding their moods, about alienating their readers by being funnier than they’ve come to expect, or more depressed than they’ve come to expect, or basically altogether different than who they think their readers think they are. I’ve been there a hundred times myself. I hate writing “About Me” synopses or pulling out for you my most definitive posts. I don’t think there are any. I don’t want to meet anyone else’s definition. I don’t want to fit neatly into any Technorati tag.

If I could have one wish for you bloggers (and me) in the new year it would be to release yourselves from these shackles that never existed. Don’t worry if you go a week or two or three or nine without posting. Don’t apologize, or explain. Don’t read blogs you don’t want to read. Don’t comment to build your own traffic. Don’t write words mimicking the voices of other bloggers you think have got it made. Don’t post obligatory anythings. Hang each post upon the walls of your space and don’t worry about whether or not it matches the hangings around it. If you are being honest and true to yourself only, the entire thing will speak for itself. It will be its own mosaic of unabashed, unapologetic beauty.

I wish for you all a brave, authentic 2009.

Our cousin’s caring bridge site has been taken down. I won’t be mentioning her name here again. It’s not that she doesn’t need the support anymore; she does. These are the most trying days, the days of doubt and cruel reality and unanswerable questions. The aftermath is always worse than the crisis itself. Now is when kind words and thoughtful prayers mean the most. It’s such a shame.

I went to the gym yesterday without complaint, just because I could. I stayed a little longer, pushed a little harder, fixated for once not on my weight but on the gift of pain, of movement. After my workout I stood in the shower for the longest time, just because I could. I turned slowly around and around in a circle, a solo baptismal dance, because I can. I turned the handle in infinitesimal increments, pushed the heat higher and higher, felt the stream prickle like a thousand needles, turned it down and felt it cool again, soothing. Relished in every sensation. Because I can.

My family, unfamiliar with blogging, was caught completely unaware by the swift turn of events on the caring bridge site. You and I know the risk all too well. We’ve experienced it, or we’ve watched it happen to others. In the blogosphere these people are called “trolls,” and though it’s easy to write them off as evil, brainless twits with nothing better to do, I’ve always thought that was a misconception. More often than not, they have a vested interest in their victim. They have their reasons, sometimes valid, often misunderstood, for harboring anger or hurt. They are just like you and me but for one critical distinction: They have chosen to expend energy tearing down others.

I’ve written about this before. I have nothing against thoughtful argument. I value free speech. I don’t think less of people who believe in completely different things than I do; I married one. I understand feeling angry. I get depressed. I mope for days when it’s particularly gloomy outside. I’m easily strangled by fog. I rail in my head against those who’ve wronged me; I confront them directly when I’m calm. I make all kinds of mistakes. I can empathize with almost anyone.

But I never intentionally inflict pain. I never, ever, grow false balls under the cloak of anonymity, though I’ve been tempted many times. I never use my precious energy to spew venom into the world, just because I can. That, my friends, is the difference.

I know what it’s like to open your chest wide to receive badly needed love, only to suddenly have someone shiv you in the soft space between ribs. It makes you want to huddle into yourself, snap shut the shell, close up permanently. It doesn’t matter how many thousands of well-wishes have coaxed you out beforehand, have lit the patchy warmth for you to bask; a very small palmful of deliberate cruelties cast a far wider shadow. All you can see is darkness. You barely remember the light.

I hope you never use your energy this way. I hope you look first with love, stand up for injustice and argue your points, but never cross that line into disrespect and brutality. This life is so short, so porcelain, so unpredictable, haven’t we just seen that? Use your time and your power wisely, constructively, generously. Be the bigger person.

Because you can.

Every year I sit down and bang out a holiday card letter. This kind of writing has always come easily to me, the unfettered, unedited free-form riffs I use to keep family and friends updated. I’ve been writing these missives for years and years, and I’ve always looked forward to it. But here we are, three days before Christmas and a day into Hanukkah, and up until an hour ago I hadn’t written a word. I couldn’t.

I have always tried to be honest in my holiday letters. The tradition was born in part from a desire to combat the stereotypical update letter, the happy-go-lucky aren’t-we-fantastic-world-travelers-and-could-our-children-possibly-excel-more-can-you-believe-they’re-not-President-or-American-Idols-yet? letters that make me feel two feet tall. It started when I was a kid, in response to one particular family’s over-the-top letter. I used to write satirical updates on my and my siblings’ failing grades, arrest records, or forays into drugs, just to make my parents smile. As an adult, I kept the tradition and the sentiment but added in truth. I felt like my loved ones would appreciate knowing how un-perfect my life was, that they’d perhaps feel better about how un-perfect theirs were, how un-perfect all of ours are. Because oh, how they are.

The last week or two my laptop has served more often as drink coaster than holiday-card writer, or blog entry portal, or social media connector, or anything responsibility-meeting in general. I can’t seem to do it. I can’t seem to sit down here and tell you about the awesome Christmas party in Chicago, or game nights with my kids, or my visiting house guests, or the extreme snowfalls and frigid below-zero days…. and for the life of me, I can’t seem to sit down and type out an honest summary of the last year because I don’t want to Grinch-out 127 people’s holidays with my card. Because I’m just not feeling it.

I am blessed. I know I am blessed. I have experienced more joy than I could ever document this year, I have. But.

I’m worried about Dave’s job loss, even though he’s not. I’m worried sick about our cousin’s paralysis. I’m not interested in cataloging marriages and divorces, middle-of-the-night agonies and loved ones buried, and wrapping it all into a cute little holiday card bow.

My visiting brother and sister-in-law took Emma to lunch this afternoon and told me to sit down and write the cheery letter already, dammit! So I did. I finished it five minutes ago. I hope it doesn’t let anyone down.

I closed out the letter with the most truthful line I could muster, and I’ll use it to close out this post, too.

I pray all is equal parts sweet and survivable with you and yours.

Happy Holidays.

The problem, as I see it, is too much love.

They don’t tell you this in the beginning. None of the child-rearing books make mention of the wretched heartbreak that comes part and parcel with parenthood. Maybe there’s a whisper from an overjoyed mother here or a twinkly-eyed grandmother there, phrases uttered like winks, “You’ll never believe you can love something so much until you give birth!” — but it’s abstract, and cheery. We birth out babies and we think, “Is this it? Is this what they meant?” But we’re looking in the wrong direction. Exhilarated bliss is not what it’s about. What it’s about is the profound new knowledge that no matter what happens next, you now love another being so much that you honestly don’t know if you will survive if they don’t. You are bound and gagged by the most suffocating loves of all, a kind you didn’t even know existed. This is what nobody tells you ahead of time.

I am not depressed. I am far, far from suicidal. I am a complete, whole, independent woman, and if something happened to my husband I would be devastated, but I would survive it. I can’t say the same about my children, and so every night I whisper feverish prayers that I never, ever have to find out.

I wonder, sometimes, if it’s an evolutionary thing, a survival thing, that new parents can’t look beyond the present hour. From the moment the pregnancy test comes clear, in fact, our thoughts immediately turn to the first trimester. If I can just make it through these first three months of pregnancy, my baby will be fine.

The first trimester passes, and we turn our attention to the rest of the pregnancy. I don’t care whether it’s a boy or a girl, God, just please let it be healthy. Our baby is born and we focus on its first three months of life, when the overwhelming majority of unexplained infant deaths occur. Please God, if we make it through these first three months my baby will be okay.

The baby grows. Through car seat checks and avoidance of peanuts and honey, she grows. With each milestone, before we even have a chance to give thanks for the last, we’ve moved on to the next. The next worry, the next fixation, the next hurdle. If we can just make it through A, through B, through C, my baby will be fine.

At some point, though (often in the face of tragedy) we’re smacked in the face by the big picture. By a truth so unimaginable that no baby book would dare ever print it. That thing we never let ourselves fully believe.

They are never safe. Not ever, no matter what we do. The three month markers never end. None of us ever knows.

There is a rare anguish we have all seen on the faces of some of our loved ones. There is a home movie reel slapping through my mind, flashing blips of barely survivable moments now cauterized on my brain. My aunt’s face as she buried my baby cousin. My grandma’s face as the people from the funeral home wheeled my uncle’s body out. My own mother’s face standing over my bed in the ER. The face I imagine her mother is wearing right now. I wish I could forget.

Halfway through writing this post, Christy left a comment on my last entry. She said,

“It’s awful…I often wonder if there is ever a time as a parent when you can just breathe a sigh of relief b/c you’re over all the humps. When there’s not another worry around the corner–fear that something can come along at any moment and change life as you know it.”

There isn’t. We don’t know. We never will. I’m not one for church, but this is why I pray every single night. I pray hard.

And it hurts. It twists my gut like a pretzel. It makes me feel duped, because nobody told me it would be this way. Nobody told me that by having children, I would lose all control.

The only way to reconcile myself with this feeling is to let go. I know that. And with the letting go of control, I need to release the resentment, too — because had I known ahead of time, of course I wouldn’t have traded it. I wouldn’t have skipped knowing this awful, wretched love, not for the world. It’s just hard sometimes, you know?

Today is one of those times.

Since my last post, everything has changed. Everything has changed, and yet nothing has changed at all.

I thought the big news I’d be sharing was that Dave has lost his job. As it turns out, that was not the big news. That will be fine. Everything will be okay. Trust me on this, please, because I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

The big news, as it turns out, is that a 24-year-old member of our family was in a terrible car accident, and she is paralyzed.

Suddenly, the perceived importance of things like job loss (and good writing) fade.

(poof.)

I will not mention her name, nor her geographical location, nor any incriminating details. This post is not meant to exploit.

I will not wax poetic. There are no lessons here, no silver linings. This is not mine to make into magic, into sermon. There will be no eloquent blog post here.

There are a million things I could say, a million ways I could work out my own turmoil in a space that is mine, all mine, but there’s no way on God’s green earth I will say a word in that vein, in vain.

All I mean to do is mark time.

I know that her parents read this blog, or at least, they used to. They used to before today, when today morphed into a gruesome marker that severed what they used to know from what they know now. Today will forever mean everything to them. Someday, perhaps after they’ve relearned how to breathe and to talk and to shower and to put one foot in front of the other, themselves, they may see this post. They may even seek it out, when they come back to the real world, just to see if anyone else realizes what this day meant, as it occurred. By then they’ll understand that the worst part of this whole thing will be that the rest of the world has moved on like nothing ever happened at all. It’s gonna hurt, my GOD, it’s gonna hurt.

Because here’s the thing: The rest of the world keeps spinning. The rest of the world has no idea that anything has changed today. The cars drive on, the newscasts move on, the people, they go on. They go on, and they have no idea.

But I do. I know. And that’s all this is.

Someday, should you come back to this blog, should you seek out this date, this date that now means everything to you, you will see this post, this message. You will know that I marked time, that I slapped down my palm with a vehemence and a bitterness and an anguish I haven’t known in years, and I said, “LISTEN!”

Listen.

Today, everything changed for you. I know that. I mark it.

And so does everyone who reads this. We mark it, for you.

The day that everything changed, for you.

God help us.

Amen.