You’ve worked hard to make today special:
To make her dream of the perfect Christmas come true…
To give your children the gifts they’ve pined for, to see the wild delight in their eyes…
To please and appease the relatives and all their little plans for you.
And meanwhile, you expect little for yourself.
No grand gifts, no great gratitude…
All you want it to make it through un-criticized, to tip-toe through the gauntlet of expectation un-bloodied.
And in that respect, today is much like the others:
You go into your days loved, but watched closely: born a man… born a loaded gun.
Well, I do not have some gift-wrapped thing for you today. All I have is this:
You are not some broken creature.
You are not some “contained blight.”
In short, you are not the curse:
You are the gift.
No matter your history, no matter your mistakes, no matter the gulf between the way you wish to live and the way you have thus far…
There is magic in you.
Still and always.
You are the gift.
And they are lucky to have you.
Much love, and Merry Christmas.
Thanks Bryan. In this post you totally captured how I feel this post Christmas. Your words are exactly what I needed to hear. You sir, have a gift. Keep up the good work.
One’s life is not a gift to one’s self, but to others, by being a tolerable and pleasant human being. The individual is, however, always almighty, in that they can (with ease) reclaim that gift by a slight change in character.
The power could be yours, but not the gift of your life!
Thought provoking shit Bryan, just came across your articles this morning on facebook, whilst sitting on the john feeling worthless, trying to come up with a plan to break the shackles of middle class slavery and this article here just reminded me of the above. GOOD shit man, good shit!