Happiness New Year

The seconds are ticking off until it's 2009. Without question, this year has been one of the most difficult of my life...and I thought 2007 was bad. The truth is, this was undoubtedly a terrible year in so many ways. But in other ways - friends made, acquaintances renewed, steps taken forward in this new life - it was a successful year.

And while it's impossible for me to forget Ronnie's death and how it changed everything about our family, my life, and my perspective, I must also remember that life goes on. The days continue to pass, and though I will continue to keep his memory, it would be an insult for me to let that keep me from living.

So...here's to a review of 2008, a year of losses and gains, of grief and gratitude, of seriousness and snark. I will be ringing in the new year with faith, hope and love...those things that I've learned are essential under any circumstances. Happy New Year, my dears.


January: Measuring Up: In Praise of Junk in the Trunk


February: Devastate, In All Its Forms


March: Just the Five of Us: The Shape of a Family and The New Theory of Relativity




April: This is a List


May: Weeds


June: Father's Day






July: Ghosts of Trees


August: Gratitude: A Letter to the Universe





September: Meet the Parents (or My Not-So-Great Evil Plan)





October: Tumbled Thoughts from the Shoreline


November: Gratitude: Part V - Love (and more gratitude)


December: Let It Snow

My Little Drummer Boy

Let It Snow

It's Christmas Eve.

I am dreaming of a white Christmas. I am wishing for a dense white snow to blanket my heart in a winter wonderland where I can stay only just alive enough to get through the next two days. I am wishing for it to blizzard my mind with tidings of comfort and joy, erasing the flurry of thoughts and emotions about Christmas past and present scattered there. I am wishing for it to flutter down into my stomach and cool the slow burn of an open fire that's building there. I am wishing for it to muffle the sounds of Christmas wishes and carols and leave me in a quiet, silent night instead. I am wishing for it to surround me in clean white nothingness until I can stand to see upon a midnight clear, the world as it really is. Baby, it's cold outside.

I am wishing for you - wherever you are, dear readers - a holiday of peacefulness and love. Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Hold close to the ones who matter most to you. Cherish them. Amid the gales of laughter and the wonder and excitement, steal a moment to save forever the best of what's around you. Enjoy your gifts. Celebrate The Gift.

Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men...and let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

How Now Brown Wow?

Cashthrax: A Metalgrass Band

I don't confess to be musical in any sort of way other than liking to listen to it. But I do know a little bit about bluegrass - how it generally sounds, the kind of instruments that are involved, the harmonies. Enough to know that the show I went to Friday night featured a band that was decidedly not bluegrass.

While we were subjected to the sounds of The Unknown Band, I made a few observations, puzzled together this mysterious musical performance and came up with this: the band came together with two sets of brothers - one in each pair devoted to classic bluegrass and their counterparts equally passionate about heavy metal. But rather than be brothers divided, they decided to meld their incongruous loves into a band of heretofore unknown composition: the metalgrass band.

The metalheads brought their pounding drums and their electric guitar riffs and the grassroots brought their upright bass and their banjo and then they found the missing ingredient: the pretty-boy frontman who could hunch over a mandolin but never quite make noise with it. And this motley crew became Cashthrax, an absolute abomination to both ends of the spectrum.

And poor Jason and me were stuck...for thirty minutes, listening to them bang and wail in a fashion that was a glaring insult to all things bluegrass and a wad of spit in the eye to all things metal. But they labored on, picking and plucking in their cowboy boots and their Converse and their long Amish beards and sang something that was neither identifiable nor enjoyable.

And then the headliner appeared with the proper instruments and harmonies and vocals and sounds and words. The world improved greatly for a brief moment...and then tilted on its axis in a haze of white-boy pain and mid-life clogging. A cluster of frat-boy redneck types moved into the middle of the open floor - one wearing a camoflauge cap, another a Member's Only jacket - and began what can only be characterized as a rhythmless white-boy shuffle. They were soon joined by a 40ish or so woman in a dress so ugly, it pained me. No. Seriously. This dress - this boxy black and camel dress - hurt me. And it hurt me even more when I noticed her hair was held in place by a small pink terrycloth scrunchie. She took to the floor in her thick suntan-colored pantyhose (shoes kicked to the side) and clogged the dickens out of that concrete floor. And when she wasn't clogging, she was to the side with her decidedly more stylish friend (although Jason insisted she didn't score that many extra points) who seemed to be the girlfriend of a hip Atown townie who was so stoic and immobile, I would've thought him dead. But it was his friend - the sometimes sax player (?) - who was the attraction for the clogger. And while stylish friend (whose name I decided was Willow) tried to motivate her catatonic beau to move things along, the sax player and the clogger had intermittent awkward conversations leaned across the impassive zombie while Willow stroked his neck. And on top of that, we were fascinated by the incredibly bad date that was happening stage left, cringing at the body language and counting the guy's trips to the bar for another beer. Drink til she's cute!

All that said, the band was rather enjoyable. That is until they descended from the stage into the mob of mutants and continued playing and the mutants started shouting incomprehensibly. That's I turned to Jason and said, "Let's go now." And we walked out into the cold and hoped that whatever fissure had opened up in the universe behind us had closed - and hopefully taken that hideous dress with it.

Bah Humbug: I'm scrooged about...

...the Ferrero Roche holiday commercial. I want to deck them...

...the Secret Santa festivities at work. Like, I don't know what to get my family, much less my coworkers...

...my dad's sister who called last night and told Mom that they "could be here" on the 23rd and planned to spend 4 or 5 days. They have never spent Christmas with us - in fact, I'd wager I haven't seen them since my college graduation - and of all years to inflict themselves upon us...

...the return of The Panic, which is undoubtedly induced by the whole Christmas season (to quote my emotional counterpart, The Grinch), but whatever the reason, I've found myself fighting the gag reflex, hiding in the ladies' room, deep breathing, and holding my breath altogether...

...my inability to buy one single solitary Christmas present. Really. Not one...

...the fam's unwillingness to commit to a time frame on our family Christmas celebration, which is usually the weekend after Christmas but we're trying to consolidate and avoid prolonging the agony...

...me, being so grumpy, so overly sensitive, so reactive to every yuletide good wish with a mental, 'oh bugger off' and feeling like I'm wearing a sour grinchy frown and blaming everything on work and fatigue...

Face it, I'm totally scrooged.

Simply Irresistible

In case you missed it on Facebook, here's the first meme I've seen in a long time that was worth doing. Check out Kim Shable's blog to see from whence I ripped the original.

RULES:
A. Put your music player on shuffle.
B. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
C. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
D. Tag 10 friends who might enjoy doing the game as well as the person you got the game from.

1. IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
"Jenny was a Friend of Mine" by The Killers

2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
"Full of Grace" by Sarah McLachlan (oh, that seems a little lofty)

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
"White Flag" by Dido

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"Sundays" by Counting Crows

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
"Belief" by Gavin DeGraw

6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
"Lovestoned" by Justin Timberlake

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"Joking" by Indigo Girls (that's probably pretty true!)

8.WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
"Moondance" by Van Morrison

9. WHAT IS 2 + 2?
"Grace is Gone" by Dave Matthews Band

10 WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
"Wheel" by John Mayer (???)

11.WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"The Light" by David Gray

12. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
"Going Back to Georgia" by Nanci Griffith (I swear! That's what came up!)

13. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
"Fantine's Arrest" from Les Miserables (perhaps not!)

14. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Push" by Sarah McLachlan

15. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
"Thank You" by Dido

16. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
"Cheers Darlin'" by Damien Rice

17 What will they play at your funeral?
"The Scientist" by Coldplay (I might cry now...)

18. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
"Lullaby" by Dixie Chics

19. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
"Delicate" by Damien Rice

20. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
"Hospital Food" by David Gray (Sorry, y'all)

21. WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
"Beautiful Day" by U2

22. HOW WILL YOU DIE?
"Songbird" by Eva Cassidy (Note to self: do not watch The Birds)

23. WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
"It's All Over" by David Gray

24. WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
"Green" by Brendan James

25. WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
"Raspberry Swirl" by Tori Amos

26. WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
"Vultures" by John Mayer (YIPE!)

27. DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
"Hanging on Too Long" by Duffy (Is that a no?)

28. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
"Dramamine" by Sun Kil Moon

29. WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
" ou Can Bring Me Flowers" by Ray LaMontagne

30. WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
"Simply Irresistible" by Robert Palmer

Modes of Transportation

I find myself lacking in substance right now. I feel compelled to write, to post thoughts, but I'm not clear on the thoughts. They are ephemeral and indistinct. Life seems to both be moving in slow motion and warp speed.

The holidays are coming...a lumbering freighter, moving lethargically toward me. It is impossible not to see it; but its girth, its potential impact, is impossible to comprehend and so I watch it inching ever closer with all its threatening weight and isolate myself from it. Even as I see the waters shift and rise, I hold my breath, and dismiss the fractional disturbance.

On the other hand, the life that goes on, that moves ever faster away from death, is a speeding train with only flashes of countryside visible out its small square windows. The colors and shapes are blinding; on the inside, faces crowd around me, no more than blurs. And this, unlike the freighter, I'm trying to absorb. I'm trying to find a place in my mind for these faces, for the names that go with them. I'm trying to make room in my mind for this part of life. But it's all moving so fast and I can't hold on. I can't focus and so I'm floating in that sea of undecipherable features. I want so much for these passengers on the train to stay, to have meaning.

And the train speeds on, and the ship pitches toward me. And I am but a wisp of smoke caught between the two.

A Gem of a Break-Up Song

Whether or not you like the All-American Rejects, you have to give them credit for their new single "Gives You Hell." It's a really fabulous break-up anthem. The kind you should listen to with the windows down, possibly driving a little too fast and screaming the words at the top of your lungs. Please enjoy.

Confession

In my eagerness to have the house to myself, I just effectively "hustled" my parents out the door.

One Little Blackbird

Stumbling through the past couple of weeks of work, travel and holiday, I've gotten to that place where life is simply too crowded. Too crowded with commitments, demands, appointments. Too crowded with people and places and working hard to keep up appearances. Too crowded with smiles I don't really feel and thoughts that bounce around my brain and never settle. Too crowded to sleep. So crowded that there hardly seems room for me anymore.

Dad's company is having its holiday party in Atlanta this weekend, and so he and Mom are heading up to Anna's on Saturday morning and will attend the party from there. This is the first time that I've had the feeling that I could not go. I could stay. I could give myself a break. I could experience complete and utter silence.

And inside, a war between could and should started raging. Anna's having a hard time, and I feel like I should go be with her. I should be there for her...not to fix it, but just to try my best to absorb some of her misery (as though it could ease her burden).

But instead, I'm going to let could defeat should this time around. Because I realized that my could was actually connected to a should -I should pay attention to what I need. In the interest of self-preservation and in light of what the next few weeks will bring, I must stop. I must take time to be just one. Just me. To take a deep breathe and reach around all of the thoughts, gather them up and push them into a corner of my mind and fill the empty space with sweet, sweet silence.

Go Ahead and Laugh

* On Saturday evening, as we drove down the highway in the cold rain, discussing how hard the holidays were on Anna, my mother withdrew a "finger pistol" from her pocket and fired at each of the lighted angels hung on the streetlamps.

* The Professor is now my friend on Facebook, but his acceptance of my friend request was preceded by an e-mail explaining why his relationship status is set to "In a Relationship" with The Ex.

* I have developed a crush on the FreeCreditReport.com dude.

* The Dirty Film Boys continued their stare tactics until the ladies in our office revolted and created a sign to wear on our backs that said, "I can see you looking at me in the reflection, genius." But The Boss interceded and let the Dirty Film Boys know they were creeping us out - to which they apologized and noted, "They're the best things to look at up here."

* I am seriously disappointed that I missed the Britney documentary and even consulted MTV.com to find out when it will be online.

Gratitude: Part V - Love

Today is the day that we come together and give thanks for what we have. And the thing that I have in abundance - the thing that political strife and economic turmoil and absolute tragedy can't take away - is love. Just that. Just love. And I am grateful beyond measure for love.

For the love of my family...whom I have grown closer to and come to appreciate more than I ever have in my life. I cherish them and see them, as with fresh eyes, for the immense blessing that they are. They are the cornerstones that keep me grounded, that support me, that I always, always come back to.

For the love of my friends...whom I have relied on for strength and comfort and peace in the past nine months. You have been the eyes reading my thoughts and the ears hearing my words and the arms that have gone around me when there was simply nothing to say. You have shown me the meaning of true friendship - in the worst of circumstances - you have risen to the occasion to humble me with your love.

For the love of my work...which has given me constancy during turbulence. I don't like to say too much about my job on the blog, but I will say that the company has embraced me and helped me hold it together when my whole life was flying apart. I get to do what I love, and I get to do it with people I love. On Tuesday, the Big Boss was in the ATown office, and he hugged me and said, "I'm so thankful for you." And I am thankful for a job where I am loved.

For the love of words...how they have sustained me through the darkest times. Even when I thought I was speechless, struck dumb by the wholly unexpected tragedy, I found words. And unleashed, those black marks against white inked out all that was seizing my heart and mind. Words, words, words. I thank God for the blessing of words, my friends when I am in need. How I love words...in some ways, I had almost forgotten.

For the love of God...no, really. For the Peace that Passes All Understanding, for a faith that has given me a Rock upon which to stand, for prayers that have been heard, for the comfort that has been given.

For the love of love...for the recognition that love is what is healing me. Love is what is keeping me from falling apart, what keeps me from being afraid of the dark. Love is what I can offer to my sister, to the rest of my family. Love is the only thing that I can give back to those friends who have been there for me. Love can be given in words, expressed to those who need it. Love is the embodiment of the God who loves me.

Thank you, Love.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

Gratitude: Part IV - Life & Death

This year, death shredded our lives into tiny pieces. Death, when it happens so close to you, when you touch it with your very hand, causes a fracture. And ironically, it's this fault line created by death that defines the life that goes on. For us, there is only before Ronnie died and after. Soon, we will mark a year since his passing, one layer of bedrock laid. And shortly after that, we'll welcome a new life into our family. But even as new life joins us, there's no way to erase the strata of pain, sorrow, loss and absence that have fossilized since his death.

But there is a way to see that alongside death, there are signs of life worth noting. There is the way the family banded together and is stronger for it, from the strength that comes from carrying one another through this. There is friendship - the arms reaching out from near and far to carry me through this when I needed more than I even knew. From afar, through emails and phone calls and blog comments and cards and prayers, my friends reached out to me and staunched the bleeding. There is humanity - the unbelievable generosity of the human spirit...the kindness that arises from tragedy. The unification of strangers by the realities of the human condition - death is something we all face. I'll never forget the 14-year-old boy, a son of one of the lunchroom workers at Anna and Ronnie's school, who came to the visitation and stood in line with his mother in his shirt and tie and called me "m'am" and told me he'd like to give me a hug because I looked like I needed one. And that's the kind of thing - no matter how painful death is - that makes this life one to be grateful for.

Gratitude: Part III - Oneness

Right now is marking the longest I've been single since I was 19. Somewhere along the way, after my first "serious" boyfriend in college, I became a serial dater. I flowed from one relationship to the next without taking a pause to breathe. A decade of continuous relationshipping - ten years in which I grew and changed but didn't have a lot of time to myself.

I know I complain about it. I worry over it. I self-deprecate endlessly about it. My oneness. And while it's true that I have to live with it, that I have to find out that, yes, one is the loneliest number, it's taught me a lot about myself. I mean, when it's just me, myself and I, the pickings are slim.

I often lament the depth with which I feel things when it's sadness or pain. But it's that depth that gives me something to balance against when the good comes along. Like a see-saw, what goes down must come up. So I'm learning to think of this all relatively...that the oneness and all its trimmings - the loneliness, the awkwardness, the grumpiness, the sadness - give me such a strong perspective on being single that when I finally find a match (assuming there's one out there?) it'll be something spectacular. Or so I tell myself.

But for now, I'm thankful for my oneness. That in myself, I've finally found someone I want to spend the rest of my life with.

Gratitude: Part II - Calm

"I just got lost. Every river that I tried to cross. Ever door I ever tried was locked. Oh, I'm just waiting till the shine wears off." --Coldplay, "Lost!"

I was a stranger in my own mind, divided between the thoughts that made sense and the thoughts that interfered with all reason and rationale. The interlopers stung me, numbed the parts of my brain I needed and activated other parts so dark and murky that I was lost.

But I have once again befriended reason and become acquainted with rationale. Those parts of my brain that slumbered have shaken off their lethargy and began to glow again. There is light; there is hope.

Beyond just feeling better, I am filled with calm. This past week, I was in a situation that should have had me shaking in my shoes, but instead, I felt utterly peaceful and unmoved. As though I had reached a different mental plateau, one from which it was easy to look down and see the insignificance of what was below and look ahead and see all that was before me and embrace it. Rather than falling off a cliff, I am reaching for higher ground with full confidence that my feet will find the right footing.

Rather than pleading for the storm to be calmed, I am the calm in the storm.

Gratitude: Part I - Belonging

For so long, I felt like a ship adrift, having untied my moorings and sailed into different waters. Though I found a harbor, it was difficult to drop anchor. It seemed that I would throw it over the side, only to find it weightless and futile. An anchor with no gravity. A ship with no way to hold.

I stubbornly stayed in the harbor though, convinced that I had followed the right currents, that I had read the map correctly, that I had found the waters where I could finally fold up my sails and put my weary soul to rest.

And while I had one myopic eye to the telescope looking into the distant future and trying to spot that solid ground that I longed for, slowly but surely my anchor gained gravity. Ounce by ounce, it grew heavier. One by one, those whose names I knew become those I knew. The husks of acquaintance were stripped away to reveal the meat of friendship.

On Friday, I passed through the Atlanta office on my way back home. Two women came surging from one of the hallways and one said, "I told her I heard your voice!" This welcome, this recognition of me, was a reminder that I am home in more ways that I even acknowledge. There are a multitude of places I can consider myself among friends (including here), and I think of those places and faces and I am astounded; I am overwhelmed by their surprising numbers - more than I would've guessed at first thought - and I am touched by the depth of feeling for this motley crew of people I've collected. Without realizing it, my skeleton crew has evolved into a tour de force.

My anchor has grown heavy but my heart has grown light. So I throw gravity overboard, and climb down to the solid ground where I belong.

Adopting a New State of Being

gratitude: the state of being grateful; warm and friendly feeling toward a benefactor; kindness awakened by a favor received; thankfulness.

Gratitude, I think, is a natural response, a genuine feeling that springs up without effort in the wake of a gesture of kindness. Thankfulness - or Thanksgiving, if you will - is more intentional. It's a deliberate pause to express the gratitude you feel. For most of us, that's by the words "thank you" - the Pavlovian utterance dictated by the good manners instilled in us by our parents. Someone gives you something, and a little voice in your head prompts, "What do you say?'

Gratitude comes quickly and easily when a gift, a compliment or a favor are exchanged. It's omnipresent alongside selflessness. And miracles. And good times.

But what about the difficult times? The times in life that not only fail to provoke gratitude, they ignite the counter emotions of resentment, anger and frustration. In these times, the absence of gratitude make it nearly impossible to be thankful. Without the automatic response, the active response is forgotten. Without the inspiration of warm, benevolent feelings, how can one conjure up the energy to express them? And what would they be for?

The past year has been one of the most difficult of my life. Full of mental turmoil. Loneliness. Fear. Sorrow. I have fought my own demons. I have battled my own grief - all-consuming, heartbreaking grief - and I have borne the grief of others. I have lost love; I have lost loved ones. As calendar turned to November, I confess, I felt that Thanksgiving was going to be quite the ironic exercise. Thanks, but no thanks.

But the truth is - in spite of all I've lost and all I've endured - I have so many more blessings than I could ever imagine. For all of the things that are absent, there are so many more that are present in abundance.

Each day this week, I will be offering reflections on those blessings. I hope that by listening to that little voice and prompting myself to say "thank you," I'll inspire an ongoing state of gratitude, an acknowledgment of the reasons I have to be thankful.

Beginnings and Endings

Tonight, I had an after-work drink with The Professor. I think it can best be categorized as a "Happy Thanksgiving, sorry we weren't a love match" drink. And the funny thing is, that was probably the best conversation we've had. We ended up talking about nothing special, but we walked down the sidewalk, arm in arm, and laughing against the bite of the November cold that neither one of us was dressed for. Perhaps this is just the end of the beginning and the beginning of something better.

***
I met up with a friend last night...beyond a friend, really. Someone who's been part of my life for many, many years in both person and spirit. It seemed as though we had found an ending some seven years ago when we fell incommunicado. But instead, I find that our story goes on, somehow the words still writing themselves despite the silence. It was just the end of an era. A new one has begun, seemingly right where we left off the last sentence.

****
The fall was unexpectedly beautiful this year. Everyone said that with the drought, it would be less vibrant. Instead, the landscape shimmered with deep ruby reds and luminescent yellows and fiery oranges. The air cooled and crisped; it all seemed so refreshing. The color somehow alive and hopeful. But the leaves have since dried and fallen to the ground, swirled across the browning lawns, and whispering in the wind. These scuttling voices are cold and sad and lonely. And so autumn dies, and winter begins.

***
The year is dying. And so much dies with it. For just a few more short weeks, I'll be able to say that Ronnie was alive this year...and then we'll begin another year. One that he never lived to see. Between now and then are the holidays, and I'm beginning to experience The Tiny Tim Syndrome...seeing that empty chair alongside The Ghost of Christmas Future. Only, we won't wake up. We won't get to beg the Ghost to take us back and fix it. It is broken. And it is over.

This is the beginning of the end of this year. This is the beginning of the holiday season and the end of the grace period where things seemed to be easier. This is the beginning of another wave of grief and the end of the calm before the storm. This is the beginning of the Advent and the advent of a sorrow we cannot hope to overcome.

May this be the beginning of the Peace that Passes All Understanding and an end to the despair that clings to everything.

Extra Credit: Giving the Professor His Due

Friday night, The Professor and I ate pizza and watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which I do not recommend unless you want to endure four very uncomfortable penis shots).

And afterward, we moved into the "We Need to Talk" portion of the evening.

What it boils down to is that me and The Professor want this all to work. We want this - whatever it may be categorized as - to blossom into a raltionship. Not for the right reasons, mind you. We both selfishly want it to work so that we don't each have to go back to square one alone. As we talked, I realized that some of The Professor's "whens" were hopeful ones - a relationship version of The Little Engine That Could. Perhaps determination and encouragement would help us up the hill and around the bend to the place where we were partners in a bridge tournament at the family reunion.

But in the end, it's just not there. The IT. The mysterious, unnameable, intangible IT that makes the world go round. I like him and he likes me. And there's some chemistry. But it's so easily smothered in the tangled tendrils of what's left of his relationship with The Ex and the inescapable cloud of grief that seems to have recollected overhead in earnest with the holidays approaching. Neither one of us seem capable of getting past our own boundaries to fan the flames of whatever might be there, and so there's this gaping chasm between what we're trying to pretend is happening and what's really there. But to his credit, he was all kindness and understanding.

I left his house Friday night disheartened. We certainly left on good terms, and I think we'll continue seeing each other in a friendly sort of way with very little expectations of the future. But for the moment, I listened to "Let it be Me" on the way home and let the tears come and hoped for when I find It.