I’m typing because my daughter demands it. She demands I type on my computer, sitting on the floor of her room while she falls asleep. This is one step better (or worse) than simply falling asleep with her after stories. All those bedtime stories where the dad falls asleep while reading are no joke!
She was up way too late, of course, because we went to a friend’s house after dinner and had too much fun and didn’t want to come home. I’m tired too, as I usually am, the sleepy beers I know I shouldn’t be drinking if I’m really that upset about my weight taking their toll on my consciousness.
It’s been a good year, and I’m loathe to complain too much or allow myself the full measure of sadness my psyche is prone to demand. In 2014 Lucy turned 3, Milo was born, Penn’s soccer team won the championship, the company I work for grew revenues and my side project grew as well.
I just told Lucy that I loved her and she told me she loved me too. That’s pretty much the best thing ever.
The weather has been cold(ish) (40’s and 50’s) and cloudy for a week. It might just be that my favorite kind of weather has put me in the holiday spirit. But I really can’t complain, despite the nagging anxiety and looming depression that have marked my days since Margot’s death. Things are so good these days, in fact, that I feel guilty for still letting those things have their way with me.
Lucy had made various requests and demands as I wrote this, and each one is like some kind of miracle. Every morning when we either wake up together because she cried for me in the middle of the night, or she emerges from her room and bounds into the kitchen where Carissa and I are tucking into our first cups of coffee, each moment is a reason for joy, elation…and, relief.
In this season when we celebrate the beginning of the promise of redemption, I certainly feel redeemed. And while I know, and can see, that it is much more complicated that this: when I see my son’s wide eyes recognize his mother, and his mouth open into a big smile, it feels like the hopes of a nation could be fulfilled there in that countenance.