The Beautiful Vampire Diaries

Most of you are probably aware that my sweet hardworking husband has had to switch to the nightshift at the mental health hospital he is working at. Sadly the worst of people's nightmares often become waking realities during the wee and decidedly inconvienient hours of the night. The other night he called me sounding a bit weepy and had just gotten off the phone with someone who was a ways into the process of commiting suicide(note: he never spills any confidential details to me). Amazing therapist, but moreover truly empathetic human being that he is, he cried with her and kept her calm and on the phone until the police were able to arrive. I'm not sure I could take that kind of life or death drama without becoming a basket case eventually, especially if something ever went wrong and I couldn't save the person's life. Gratefully though he manages it with extreme grace, without ever resorting to numbing himself to the job in order to cope. I so admire that in him, as I just can't seem to strike a balance there. I'm like an emotional sponge for other people's pain, except that when I'm saturated and its time to wring myself out releasing that weight inside me, I don't know how. I'm working on it though, and having someone around who is a good model is very helpful to me.

As far as the hours go though I'm worried that its going to turn me into a vampire too if I'm not careful. Although come to think of it, I think vampires actually get to sleep during the day, and that is not a luxury I am afforded. My girls need their mother while the sun still shines. Some nights I can sleep without too much trouble from sheer exhaustion, but on other nights (such as this obviously) our empty bed looks too cavernous and cold to shut my eyes. We have been married a little over a year now, and its still painful to be apart. Actually if anything that feeling seems to deepen, rather than abate. So I sit here, wishing he was home to stumble sleepily into the living room where I am writing this, and tell me to come to bed. Since he isn't, I wanted to leave one last interesting thought I had earlier this evening.

I was catching up on replying to emails, when a commercial for Cindy Crawford's line of skincare called, "Meaningful Beauty" popped up on the add bar. What struck me was how at odds the product's name was with what was actually in the pretty packaging. How can something purely cosmetic be termed 'meaningful'? Now... those of you who know me well know that I actually have had a sort of lifetime love affair with cosmetics and all things feminine, of every sparkly kind and vibrant color. It would be silly for me to deny that I don't have a lot of fun playing around with it, like an artist with their canvas. I was just thinking though how sad it is that the world has gotten so far away from true ideas about what beauty is. I find meaningful beauty everywhere, but not at Sephora, hard as people may try to shop for it on those gleaming shelves that beckon us to buy in order to be beautiful. For me I find it dancing gracefully in my daughter Sophie's joyful pirouetting and gazelle leaps over sidewalk cracks, as we her less ebullient elders merely walk behind her down the street. I find it rising boldly over the flaming sandstone stacks, each cliff molded painstakingly into place by eons of summer rains, that I can see from my backyard balcony. I find it flowing unexpectedly as I witness the gift of forgiveness being freely and wholly given, by one who had been recklessly wronged to someone who was in no way deserving. Asking why the giver answered me,"It is the only thing that is truly my own to give, and I need forgiveness from God so often, how could I refuse another?" Lastly I find it ingrained deep and true in the oak trunk gnarls of my grandmother's hands, hands that my own mother's have started to resemble....worn by decades of canning ripe tomatoes, quieting fussy babies, wiping fevered brows, braiding flaxen and raven heads of hair, and stitching together the living fabric of a family. Hands like those, now that is meaningful beauty to aspire to.