You had me at hello. Again.

Hello, love bugs. My friend Linda and her grandson Jaden just left… they were over for a short visit, and it was nice to share the beautiful Christmas tree with them, and cups of hot cocoa, the ambient fire, and our cat Horatio, with whom eight-year-old Jaden played the entire time. Yay, Horatio, for being such a good host to a little boy who might have been bored otherwise. And thank you for not biting him. Thank you for that very much.

It was a good weekend. On Sunday, after spending a satisfying and productive few hours of stocking-stuffer shopping with Scott, we picked up Jesse and drove over to Scott’s sister Peri’s house for her birthday party. I don’t like parties. I don’t like small talk. If we’re playing games, okay… there’s a focus. But milling around with a drink in my hand, trying to find someone with whom to temporarily affiliate, especially when I have NO grasp of ‘facts’ or politics or the economy or the state of the world and love our president only because he feels right to me and not because I understand everything he’s doing, can be an exercise in frustration. I usually end up getting people to talk about themselves, which works pretty well but feels a little one-sided. Isn’t it sad leaving a party feeling more lonely than you were when you got there? Thankfully, though, it turned out fine.

We played a group game – Scene It, where you shout out answers to movie questions, our team lost – and at one point in the evening we each shared a memory of Peri, which was really nice. I told her how much I appreciated her putting me at ease when I met her for the first time, twenty-six years ago. I was nervous, at her folks’ for dinner, and she pretended to trip on my outstretched leg even though she was eight months pregnant, and that made me laugh. I’ve loved her ever since. Plus, during the party, one of the kids came running in and said it was snowing! And it was! Snowing! It only snowed for about twenty minutes, but it was so pretty while it lasted.

This moment right now is my favorite of the weekend, which I consider Monday to be part of because it’s Scott’s day off. Monday evening is when my happy bugs start flailing their many tiny little legs, because I’m once again by myself and thinking about the week ahead. I’m one of those rare birds who likes the week better than the weekend. I love time to myself to read, do my spiritual thing, practice tarot, do my whatever-else thing, and then work in the afternoons. This week I’ll add finishing up the Christmas errands to the list, but I don’t mind. I’m not quite sure what to make for dinner on Christmas Eve, though… We usually have fondue, but that sucker can get expensive. I’m thinking pizzas. Yes, maybe pizzas. Maybe those little English muffin ones you make individually. That would be kind of fun, wouldn’t it?

Usually at this point in the post I try to insert some spiritual thought I’ve been thinking, but I haven’t really been having many of those over the past couple days. On Saturday, instead of resting my brain after an intense week, I did three tarot readings for myself in the morning and thoroughly pooped myself out. It’s mentally and emotionally taxing (like going through three hours of therapy), and I really need to be in a good frame of mind when I do it, and I just wasn’t. I started out feeling kind of antsy and depressed-ish and should have spent the day reading Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs instead. But I’m rested now and eager to get back to it tomorrow.

I will say, however, that I think I’ve realized what my purpose is for this particular incarnation as Kelly. Let me back up and tell you that I believe we’re eternal beings, that we have lived before and will live again. I don’t think this is our one chance to get it right, or eternally suffer if we get it wrong. I think we are able to rectify past mistakes in subsequent lives, and to right damaged relationships as well. I believe it’s possible that I came into this lifetime with a plan already in place, and that plan was to slowly wend my way through trial-and-error to the belief that I’m whole, fully complete within myself. I’ve lived this entire lifetime trying to find happiness in attachment to one man or another. But Jerry Maguire was SOOO wrong. We are already complete. We don’t need someone else to do that for us. I finally get it. Maybe next lifetime I can work on something else.

Uh, no, sweetie. How ’bout you complete you, and then you get back to me.

Next time, I wonder if I’ll be a woman again? I’m convinced that I’ve been a man way more than I’ve been a woman, and I mean that. Just an aside, but I think the idea of being differently gendered in past lives could go a long way toward a new understanding of homosexuality and bisexuality…. Now, I know some of this sounds pretty weird to some of you, and you may disagree with me. But we can still be friends because we think each other’s nifty, right? I think everyone’s nifty in their own unique way, and that even pedophilic serial killer rapists were once somebody’s little baby, though I don’t like what they’re doing as grown ups (on that we can agree). Besides, we all come from the same Place, and that’s so awesome. Love to ALL us little babies today. kiss!