Day 44

It is Christmas night. I am about to watch The Santa Clause with my husband and our girlfriend. Given all that's happened in the past few weeks, it's amazing that this day has been so wonderful.

We broke up with her and she moved out... but then we realized how much we still loved her, and she us. She's made mistakes, but none of us are perfect. She's come such a long way, too... and how can I walk away from love just because of a mistake? So, we've taken a step back... she's our girlfriend and we're dating. Maybe someday, hopefully someday, we'll have a commitment ceremony and she will move back in. For now, we take it as it comes.

Back to Christmas... as a child I dreamed of Christmases spent with someone I loved. Once I hit my teens, this dream grew into a fairytale fantasy of cuddling by a fireplace or under the glittery lights of the Christmas tree. There was snow on the ground... and mountains I could see when I looked out the window.

My childhood was never pleasant. I liked Christmas because for the most part, our incredibly dysfunctional family pretended to get along for about 36 hours. Christmas was an escape from the day-to-day reality of having a drug addict for a mother and a self-absorbed asshole for a father. It was an escape from an aunt who loved nothing more than to be vindictive and malicious and manipulative.

Christmas was my fairytale day... even the worst Christmases, I can usually pick a happy moment from. I'm a dreamer. It's not hard to find a silver lining for me, most of the time.

So, here we are... Christmas 2009. This is my 11th Christmas with him, and our first with her - one we thought we wouldn't have, or at least we thought it wouldn't be one we celebrated happily because of the breakup (we weren't letting her spend Christmas alone, regardless). We had a great Christmas dinner - in fact, he said it was the "best meal" I've ever made. I made breakfast and built a fire. There is snow on the ground, and the mountains of my dreams are right outside my window... bigger and more beautiful than I ever imagined them.

I never imagined a husband and a girlfriend in that fantasy of mine. Oh, the attraction to women wasn't unknown to me. I just expected to be conventional, which, in retrospect, was pretty silly. I'm far from conventional. I never imagined I'd be loved in such a way by not one, but two people I utterly adore. I never dreamed I'd be in Colorado, the place that is simply the home of my heart... the place I feel I belong more than any other, except in their arms.

I expected this Christmas to be brutally hard. I've been sad leading up to the season because it is the first Christmas where I've accepted the end of the dream of becoming a mother. My teenage sister, who is pregnant, just decided she doesn't think I am family, and she's been fed bullshit about my husband - a man who has been nothing but amazing to her - and she decided to put him down. She told me I was just jealous of her because she can get pregnant and I can't. She was like my daughter for so long... and now she's just gone from my life because she has been so twisted by our fucked up family that she is no longer the child I once knew.

But it doesn't matter... I am not sad. I am exquisitely happy, in fact. I have spent the day without any decorations or holiday music. We watched Elf last night... and I'm going now to hold hands with the woman I love while we watch The Santa Clause. Tonight I will sleep sandwiched between the two I love, the two who mean more to me than anything in the world.

What more of a gift could I possibly ask for or dream of?

My teenage fantasies have nothing on the reality of this day. I am left so overwhelmed and overjoyed that words cannot possibly express how I feel right now, despite my efforts here.

I am loved and lucky beyond compare... and I hope this is just the first of many Christmases like this.