missing those who are absent

Seeing family, spending time in airports, hoping I make my connection... such is the season.

I enjoy the holidays. But it also serves as a time for reflection and a time to miss those whose faces are familiar yet absent.

I have been asked quite a few times if this time is hard. I don't know quite what to say. Yes, i suppose. But not any more or less than your average Tuesday. The difference is the time to reflect and actually think about whose presence is absent around the tree or across the table.

We looked through old pictures and notes of my father's. Letters he left for my mother 30+ years ago. It was the "Good morning beautiful, see you at 5, love Michael" kind of letters. It was touching, but foreign. How long ago was it that I ever saw the more vulnerable part of my father? Did i ever really see that side of him? I don't know. I am glad he had it when he did. I wish i had had the chance to see more of it. I wish he were hear to explain his absence, both this year's and in years prior where even his physical presence left something to be desired, something to miss even mid-conversation, hug or round of golf.

He would be sixty this year. He married my mother when she was my age, 29. Thirty years ago today, my mother and father were in love. My mother thought it would last forever, but it didn't. They divorced when I was 8. Dad died 20 years later.

In the last year, I left the one relationship I thought would last forever.

It was in the midst of the one year anniversary of his death, my graduation from law school which he missed, his birthday and father's day.

I continue to wonder if it was the best decision. I know it wasn't the best execution. I was not happy. The source of the unhappiness was multi-layered and multifaceted. At many times it was impossible to separate the challenges in our relationship with the grief I was processing and an inescapable and unacknowledged urge to escape from it all. Yet the urge, the process of leaving, the pain I left behind-- was muddled and far from thought through. It was impulsive and yet felt necessary. It was simply what I was able to do in the moment. I just wanted a break from it all.

But it was never her fault.

I hate that I hurt someone I care for so much. I hate that I disappointed her so deeply, so significantly.

I wonder if love lasts: Will I disappoint someone else next round? Do couples who have been together for years and years still love one another? Is there still passion? Will I trust anything like that again? Did I ever?

I hope the answers to come are brighter than my suspicions are today. I hope tomorrow and the day after the world feels less disappointing. I hope to forgive myself for my mistakes.

Despite the pessimism I seem to be swimming in right now, I know this will pass and lend itself to something learned, something not to be forgotten, a new day.

I wish my father peace where ever he is. I send my sincerest of apologies to all of those who I have hurt or disappointed. And I hope for a year with a wealth of new perspective, a pinch of forgiveness and a more optimistic outlook on life and love.

Goodnight, sweet dreams and merry Christmas.