christmas in february
I woke up sweating. Breathless. Tears silently rolling down my cheeks. I looked around the room, and nothing, I mean n-o-t-h-i-n-g, looked familiar; my eyes landed on the clock to my right. It was 1:45 am. Two things clicked: I was in a cabin in Sedona, AZ, and I was officially 50. I swung my feet from the bed to the floor, stood up slowly, and walked over to the sliding doors so I could see the stars. Then I grabbed my red dream journal from the open suitcase, sunk into the swivel chair, and started writing furiously, trying to remember everything that jarred me awake.
It was my birthday. I was in my childhood home, sitting at the round kitchen table with my mom and dad. Orange Formica countertops surrounded us on one side. Wood-paneled walls surrounded us on the other side. And the orange, brown, and yellow low pile carpet that I walked on and wore down for all the years I lived there was underfoot.
The doorbell rang. My friend Lisa was standing on the front porch, grinning ear to ear, holding Christmas gift bags in the middle of February. I was shocked to see her. When she bolted inside, the house magically filled with people. Everyone was busy running this and that way. I couldn’t find my parents anymore. Lisa stayed close, telling me she had a huge surprise in store. It was confusing and chaotic. I felt like someone spun me around a few times, and then everything became very quiet. Everyone else disappeared. It was just the two of us standing in the middle of a house I no longer recognized, one that was completely decorated for Christmas. Lisa walked me over to a long folding table. She said, “We’re going to start at this end. I have something so special to show you.” She held a stack of photos that she started to place on the table, side by side, one by one.
The first photo she laid down was the one that’s pictured here, my newborn portrait. From there, she slowly shared a photo from every year of my life. Photo after photo after photo after photo. Smiling. Laughing. Loving. Hugging. When we reached the end of the table said, “I just wanted to remind you that it’s all been good. Sure, there’ve been spots, but those spots aren’t the ones that you need to hold onto. Hold onto these memories. These are the only ones that matter. You’ve had a good life. Don’t waste another second thinking about the things that didn’t make you happy. It’s not about those moments; it’s about these. Happy birthday.” She gave me a hug and dissolved in my arms as I woke up. Sweating. Breathless. Tears silently rolling down my cheeks.
Worth noting: my mom returned this photo to me on Thanksgiving Day, 2019, exactly nine months after that dream. As she handed it to me, she said, “I know how you like to throw everything away, and I was afraid that someday when you’re cleaning out my house, you’d miss this, and it would land in the trash. You look like a little monk, don’t you think?” I replied, “I don’t know, I can’t get passed the oh-fuck expression on my tiny face.”
Life is a wild ride, don’t you think? Try to lasso yourself to the good memories. I bet you have more of those than you think.