Monday was our usual time off, and we decided to make a morning of it in Fort Worth - we drank coffee together in a crowded shop and then nearly finished a loaded cheese fry meant for probably four to share. We talked about tattoo ideas and the good parts of work, and we wondered what our wirey puppy was doing without us there. As a planner of my hours and days and weeks ahead, we had done what we'd come for. We'd leave the city happy and full and responsibly tend to our laundry list of chores at home that mostly had to be done on that free evening (we were hosting a party in two days and had next to nothing done for it). And then before our waitress could come back to dismiss us on our way, I hear Ryan say the thing that he says when he's come up with an idea worlds away from what I'd had in mind. "You're scared," and I look up at him and he has that grin that I often say no to, but have to smile at anyways. It was once a sly tactic of reverse psychology. Me declaring that I am so not scared to do whatever it was and then proving it, and him - clapping the dust off his hands after inadvertently and also deliberately getting his way. Nowadays, it's really a game of how quickly I can surrender my scared hands up before he even has time to announce his request.

"There's a Star Wars showing at 1:45 that we'd make if we left right now." My immediate response is that we've already seen it and that we don't have time for it today, valid and rational and void of any selfish intent. Until I look up again and see the same face that sat beside me the first time, glowing as Vader entered the screen. I'm playing Tetris in my mind, trying the fit the blocks together that mean me going to the store and wrapping the rest of our gifts and washing a sink full of dishes and dusting our whole house and putting the clothes away that have set on the ground for two months. He sees me playing because it's this thing where instead of looking at him, I start looking through him and he's helping me shift the pieces around to make sense and hurrying the process along because our movie starts in fifteen minutes.

We see Star Wars, and it was undeniably better the second time. We never go to matinees, so four dollar movie tickets were fun, too. I tell him that I was able to follow the plot this time around because I already knew all of the characters and their roles and he was proud of me. We're racing home to finish up our Christmas shopping, we wait at the Target photo center for God knows how long, and we throw away two $5 hot chocolates because they weren't chocolatey enough, but hey, at least we're getting something done. By a weird twist of fate, rather than staying up late into the night to clean, we end up speeding to the new Torchy's twenty minutes before they close for free food, and is this what growing up is like? Will I live forever choosing between fun or being an efficient, time-managing adult? Tomorrow, I guess.

Tomorrow comes quicker than I remember, and I have several hours to get my shit together before it's time for work. I add SHOWER to my list just so that I have something to cross off soon after waking up. I wrap. He dusts. I finish the dishes. He vacuums. We had an exchange to make at the store and also had to eat lunch at some point, so Ryan decides to make a run. He kisses me and leaves and lets the Devil in on his way out.

I'm feeling mad at myself because saying yes to something yesterday had made my chest tighter today and I just shouldn't have let that happen. I start making my grocery list: wine, chips, carrots, cute cookies, etc. I shuffle over to the fridge to make sure I hadn't missed anything important, which was a mistake. I pull the trashcan over and start tossing things. There was a smell that I could have lived without. Tortillas with blue and green all over. This spinach never stood a chance. Does the yogurt say 2016 or 2017? An entire carton of eggs. Why do we keep buying bananas?

I don't know how to do this.

Our trash is filled with money and failure and I walk to the bedroom to put on my face, because at least I'll look better than how I feel. That's something that I can sort of control. My makeup bag is sprawled out on the edge of the bed, and I go to scoop it up and transfer it to the freshly cleaned bathroom counter. This place looks great, Ryan! He hadn't missed a corner. Just as I'm admiring the good and faithful work of my husband, my hands start to feel feeble, like they've forgotten how to balance and hold. Eyeliners and mascaras and more delicate ones start shifting around and I could either stand still or keep walking but either way it's all going down. I look for a soft landing but there wasn't one. Before it hits, I've already said the F word six times, and it didn't stop once I saw the damage. I try to salvage the larger chunks with my chipped fingernails and they crumble tinier and further into the wood. I'm scrubbing the shattered parcels of color off of the previously swept floor, and it was the last block on Tetris that reaches the ceiling and makes you lose.

Defeated, I walk bare-faced to the couch, catching my breath and unsaying words I'd cluttered the bathroom with. There's a mess over there that I see in my peripheral, but I can't deal with it right now. I look at the clock and I have to leave in 40 minutes or else I'm late to work. I feel like there's a boulder stuck in my throat and I'm trying to swallow it down when Ryan walks in the door with our lunch. I look at him surprised, like he's caught me in the act of being a bad grown-up, a ruined host and a wife who breaks things rather than fixes them. He drops the bags and looks at me back, knowing I'm never successful in swallowing the boulder.

"I just didn't have enough time to do everything. The party's tomorrow, and I barely have time to eat and what makeup will I use today?" His shirt sleeve is wet within seconds, and he shoos the Devil away as he pulls out my chair, pour me a glass of water, and sticks my fork in my food. He knows I'm too overwhelmed to get even that done. He's telling me that don't worry, it's replaceable and that look at all we accomplished this morning and that the mess will be gone when I get home. I'm crying into my Chipotle bowl and it's been awhile since I've felt this breakable. I'd suck it up, take a bite, and then remember my frailty, chewing and crying at the same time until I wasn't hungry.

I put on pants, grabbed a bottle of water from our empty refrigerator and swiped on whatever makeup had survived - hoping that there might be some eyeshadow dust stuck between the brushes - and still not knowing how to do any of this.

I drove to work no less frazzled but thankful for my mate, who holds me when I'm nothing and would later laugh in bed about the appeal of that mid-bite/ugly-cry combo. For my friends, who showed up to our party and cared more about the time spent than the stuff prepared. And for Christ, who suspected we'd be fragile. Who - when we lie dormant - comes alive so that we're not responsible for the making or winning or fixing. Who - for what we lack in knowing and today - makes up for in mercy and tomorrow.

It's dark out, and cold - but there's a star to the East that lights up the normal night like a planet. Outside is a tired donkey tied up to its stable and inside, a more tired family preparing for birth. A virgin mother, red-faced, whose partner thought she'd been unfaithful and who's probably been cast out a whore. Obedient and swollen and with no place else to go, she cushions a trough with bearable cloth. A wooden box meant for pigs and their slop. You better be who Gabriel said you'd be. 

Before there were shepherds or Wise Men, frankincense and myrrh - there was him and there was her. I just know that they must have looked at each other, the peasant girl to the carpenter boy, and wondered if those angels should have chosen anyone else. 

And there was wailing and there was singing and the Son of God was born into dust, breathing in soil and straw and the dirt that would betray him. 

Last Thursday, at church, we finished out the service singing 'O Holy Night'. The piano started and I felt excited, because Christmas. There was an expectancy in the room, the kind that feels light and heavy in the same step. People were either feeling the spirit move or they were about to go see Rogue One, but either way, the place was swaying and it was chilly outside and it had just been a really good night. And then something happened, and it's happening again right now. My dog's watching me as I type, his kind eyes shifting around like he doesn't know how to fix me.

We make it to the second verse and the dam breaks. I'm sobbing and it's one that happens when The Lord tells you to imagine the night that he came here where animals eat and he saved you. He says that you're Eve and that look around you...they'e Eve, too. He knows that you had no chance of feeling free until he came and your soul knew its worth and banished your shame. He takes your head in his hand and tells you how he knows you're sick of being hurt and trying to make things better and that's why he's come to be born that new and glorious morn. The weary have a reason to rejoice.

Shhh. Do you hear this? It's love and it's peace, there's no room for more! He shows me his hands, lets me touch the wounds on his wrists and says, "For you, I'd do it all over." He says that he'll break the chains of my neighbor slave and reminds me of Aleppo. Before I have time to think, You won't do it, he says louder that in His name, all oppression shall cease, and I'm undone. It swells and people are falling on their knees and hearing the same angel voices that Mary and Joseph must have heard before the Messiah began redeeming. 

It plays like a movie and then finishes with this: one of my favorite images to ever exist and the only one I've seen that tells of the Gospel without words. So, I see myself on the left - he's shown me. Unworthy to be seen, my hair covers my naked and exposed skin. There's lust and pride and doubt wrapped around, all climbing up my leg. I'm clutching tight to my breast the choice that had slain me, flush cheeks and too embarrassed to lift my head. 

 And then, Emmanuel, who does things that don't make sense, who began his work in the world long laid in sin and error pining and who will work until it's restored, he takes my face and tilts it over the the right and says, "But hey, you're Mary, too." He nods, knowing that I'll disagree and says that I'm beautiful with his same beauty and that it's my job to lift people's head. To gather their fingers and place them here - Shhh. Listen, do you hear? The hope of the world, love and peace and nothing else. I know what you're feeling and how they look at you and it's all been covered. He tells me that the "Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the Highest hover over you," and you will help me be the snake crusher for those in bondage. (Luke 1:35) You will go find them in the thickets and let them know of a life to come.

 Here's one of my favorite versions of O Holy Night on *still* one of my favorite Christmas albums to date - Arrival by Cross Timbers Community Church (2007).