same street, cold winter's night

The nights are getting darker, longer. It's how I know it's coming.

My night, the one I have to fight for and accept the apologies of my friends.

It's coming.

But not the same as the years' before.

I haven't been making time for myself for months. Candle burning at both ends, but the work end seems dipped in kerosene.

I tried to go to a party tonight, birthday, not christmas. No one was home, so I walked to mine.

Probably better that way. I wasn't fit for human consumption.

My night, it's coming.

But not like last year's.

Or the year before.

I will be half my father's age. First time ever. If my math is right, the only time ever, in both our lives.

It means something to me. A turning point, a threshold, a date to cross out, marker in hand.

I had meant to do more by now. Nothing specific, just more. More with everything.

I wasn't prepared for doing less.

But here I am, sitting where I was years before, doing pretty much what I was doing years before, daydreaming about what might have been.

The loss feels more acute now.

My bed is cold at night.

The house is quiet.

My stocking is where you put it, last year, untouched, waiting for someone to fill it.

There is something about the stocking.

Your family revels in them. Thinking back, so did mine.

But the one you hung for me, looking at it, my heart sinks.

For a couple of days a year, it held you and your dreams, your hopes for me.

For a couple of days, a year, it held love.

A love and happiness untainted by second thoughts, untainted by pasts not easily forgotten.

It was filled with the kind of love that children feel.

And on this night, two days before my night, I sit and I think about love. Your love.

The love that brought cake to the party room; shared cupcakes and tarantulas underground; handed me a dabber and shared snacks.

The love that warmed me.

That brought a buzzing noise into my head, my heart, every time you were around.

The love that made me feel like things would be ok, even when they weren't.

Five days from now,

I want to find that love,

in my stocking.