THE STRAW . . .

Sometimes all it takes is one short phrase to break me: "We missed you."

***

BEARING UP . . .

Thirty-one years ... Thirty-one years have passed and I'm embarrassed to admit that I am only now learning what it means to care selflessly for someone. To take on someone's problems and hurts and pains as my own and to carry them with both hands and my whole heart. To be faced with someone who has nothing to give me, not even the energy to reach out for me or smile at me or speak coherently to me, and to have to fill that person up with the little that I have myself. To overcome my tiredness so that another can be refreshed. To sacrifice my time and space so that I can give rest to another. To listen without speaking. To put myself aside for a short (or long) time so that another can take precedence. To do so cheerfully and lovingly, without resentment, without looking at the clock to see when it'll be my turn to receive.

It's exhausting. It's exhausting for the perfect soul; all the more so for me, who does it all so poorly. As imperfectly done, it is satisfying and right, but exhausting nonetheless. And I wouldn't have it any other way, for the cliche is correct: it IS better to give than to receive.

***

TICK-TOCK . . .

The countdown is on: now that the new 15" MacBook Pros, with LED screens have been released, the only big thing left to come - this year, anyway - is the mini-laptop. 13.3" is the word on the street. Super-thin. No optical drive, but who needs one anyway? Wide-screen viewing. More screen real estate. Faster everything. LED screens. I hear the Apple angels singing their joy now ....