My heart had started to turn cold. My shoulders tense. My thoughts narrowing. What point was there for Christmas? I found it a holiday filled with conflicting desires and half truths. A holiday reminder of the fractured past, while actively denying the paradox of the present. Don’t get me wrong, I love this holiday, but…the air changes a bit, and not just the temperature, tension seems to pour out of every person I pass. And with the economy the way it is, and the jobs melting faster then the snow will….well…who’s to blame the contrary wind?

As I drove down to my mother-in-law’s I was tense. Weeks of working. Hope seemingly forever on the horizon. Lack of sleep mixed with the daily concern of the next dollar created a mosaic of fears. Of course all lacking in substantial matter. For as my wife reminded me – everything was fine.

And it was. But I couldn’t see it clearly. This time of year is filled with the ghosts of the past. Intermingled memories: assembling toys after a paper ripping frenzy, the smell of my grandparents apartment in Ohio, absent family during my twenties in Korea Town.

I remember sitting in my studio apartment overlooking K-Town as Los Angeles emptied for two weeks every year. I couldn’t afford to go visit my family – especially as fractured, scattered as it was, and the work during the holidays always made up for the desert of January. I could pick up hours from those on vacation. Those starving artist years. A refugee, hiding on the fifth floor.

But that was some time ago. Maybe that was why I was so tense. Worried about returning to that life of hot dogs and cheese food product I had left behind in that apartment with the creaky elevator from the early 1900’s.

I was worried for my mother. Her first Christmas without my step father. And I guess I’m still not over his death either. Anger and grief pounding at times so loudly that anything else seems impossible to bear. Impossible to deal with. And though my grief is easing, I know my mother’s must still be at times insurmountable.

What a year…

Some might say – “hey, you’re guy won, you should be happy”. And yeah, it does give me some solace to know that Barack will be sworn in on January 20th and maybe then I can breath out more easily. But that is not a cure-all.

But I found out what is.

Or rather who…

My wife.

I love her. And my fear of letting her down had blocked my view of her beauty and her deep and profound wisdom. I had stopped listening. Too consumed. A selfish thing fear…

But as my friend Saul might say, this is a transition, don’t forget to breathe.

I had, it seems, forgotten to breathe.

And as I looked into my wife’s eyes and held her hand, realizing I had gone just a little bit away for awhile…I realized that this holiday isn’t about getting, or giving, or even religion or winter celebrations, but rather…it was about stopping.

It was about holding the ones you love close to you and letting the embrace melt the stone and ice that grows around all our hearts throughout the year.