personal advent

It's the season of anticipation and waiting. And Tamie keeps writing amazing things EVERYDAY, that I am telling you to go check out.  Her Advent series is making me want to abandon my posting and simply repost what she writes so that all my readers can feast on the beauty not only of her writing, but of how she is living a life that produces such work. 

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I think I've come to the end of a personal advent. I have been waiting for inspiration to come. I have been waiting for the breath of something new to breathe. I have felt hollowed out and empty, but the edges have been rimmed with longing and desire. There is something I have been wanting to write. A story I have been needing to tell you. But before I could write anything it was like I had to learn to put sentences together all over again. This ache was so powerful that when I tried to write it,  the words weren't enough. They were small and wouldn't hold my meaning. Not at all. Everything I tried to say just slipped off the commas, fell right off the page. Instead of writing, instead of pressing a relationship into small 12pt. blocks of print, I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry and that would be the dedication page. And then I would laugh a lot and drink some coffee and laugh some more. That would be chapter one. Chapter two would be crumpled paper, hurt and ripped. But crumpled without bitterness. Hurt and ripped without malice. Just hurt. But the tears and laughter and coffee and hurt wouldn't make any sense when you opened the envelope. It would just be silence. 

I have been waiting in the silence. I have been feeling this... this thing, underneath my ribs, pushing and struggling and writhing to get out. And yesterday, as I rode the train and listened to the jumble in my head, I knew that I had something. Where I didn't have anything before, I had something. And it was almost palpable. I could almost spit the sentence out into my hand, fully formed. And I rushed to work and bypassed all my kids coming in to school and sat down and emailed it to myself. 

And now, I have to stop waiting. Because waiting gets easier with time, doesn't it? When you are waiting for something, the pressure isn't on you, really. It's on the thing that is coming toward you. All expectation is cast and lassoed around what is drawing near. But it's arrival! Oh, the arrival is scary. Because now, it is my responsibility to stop waiting and to write. I thought that the last day of my advent would be a joyful one. But instead I feel heavy and full. 

Maybe what I write down will be nothing. Maybe it will just be a way for me to say goodbye, to accept that some things are short and beautiful, like fireworks. Kenny told me tonight that fireworks are beautiful because they are bright and because they are brief. And he is right. So I will write my firework. 

I know this might seem vague and stupid and silly. But I thought I would share with you in a vague and stupid and silly way what is going on inside me. That although I am still waiting on so many things, there are some things that I am no longer waiting on. It has arrived. It is here. And I must welcome it, make room for it, and write it.