Well, Maybe It's a Christmas Miracle

Over the past few years the feelings that surround Christmas have changed significantly for me. When I moved back to the East is Beast from the West is Best I spent my first few Christmas breaks readjusting: not to being back here, mind you, but to being a more present and active part of the Murphy family. I used to be a guest of sorts, the slightly charismatic self-centered much younger child of four who swooped in for visits and went home to . . .

to, at times a few secrets I was keeping from my family. My troubled marriage, for example, was a secret I held close and guarded carefully. My dissatisfaction with being in a doctoral program that I loved in many ways, but in many other ways was a part of because it was there and I was stuck there.

But things have changed, and since I decided to take a minute and think about Christmas I thought I'd enumerate some of the ways they have changed.

My first few years back here were spent flying to Portland, sometimes on the day after Christmas, to be with Pin and Big. Then I started just staying in NJ for long parts of the break. To a certain degree I was running away from something and running toward something. I was halfheartedly half here. I used to think at times that D and I were so 21st century a couple because he went home to see his family and I went home to see mine. I just had to go to two very different places to see mine, I guess. The result was a pretty schizophrenic Christmas -- part of it spent it the quiet suburban splendor that is NJ, part of it spent in hipster land.

This Christmas may be the last Christmas I spend with Vinnie Murphy, an idea I sometimes fool myself into thinking I'm handling well. It comes in the year I didn't get promoted and my life fell apart. It comes after a time when I couldn't imagine I would ever be happy again, ever again be spilling my guts out in cyberspace like the narcissist I am.

So this is the moment when I take the time to say that I am one lucky person. If I were a religious person I'd say I'm blessed, but I'm not so I'll leave that road untraveled. And I know it's not just luck; I know that I had a lot of help from my peeps, and I did a lot of hard work myself to make things better. So, that's my Christmas attitude this year: things are better and I'm lucky and happy.

Tomorrow I'm gonna post about the Murphy family's delicious Christmas Eve Deli Dinner, a tradition I look forward to with relish (get it?). And I'm gonna ask what your Christmas tradition are, so get ready to respond, that is if anyone reads this thing anymore. For now I'll say Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwansaa, have good one.

MNYAGG