The unchanged

I am different. As a day-to-day thing, I don't think about it, but at moments when my mind is wide open this awareness invariably finds its way into my mainstream conscience, where pop-ups like "I love doughnuts!" and "People suck!" reign.

In the four months I have been off work, things I expected to accomplish have fallen by the wayside (my vow to become an amazing juggler has only culminated in the reality of very short bursts of three-ball success; the promise of "Play the harmonica after watching this 10-minute video!" has somehow kept me from watching the 10 minute video. If it's only 10 minutes, after all, well, I could do that anytime!).

Many people have said, in that sage and somehow smug way, that this time was meant to be mine so I could find myself. The ways my days unwind are fairly straightforward - if Hunter is here, we swim and sleep and play computer games; if Hunter is gone, I try to sleep or stay at my friend's house to distract myself from the horrible, empty ache that fills my body and is so much worse than anything Pepto Bismol vows to fix. Mafia Wars has become my Pepto and is worthy of a whole blog in itself.

As always, I digress.

My birthday was last week and my sister, my sister who is entirely different than me despite our two parents in common, my sister who is 24 to my 34, my sister who is brilliant in all the ways I'm not and more, gave me a book. Not just any book, not a book on how to organize my life or lead with my head instead of my heart, but a book by our shared favorite author, Alice Hoffman.

This is the way that I will never change. Alice Hoffman writes of things that I find thrilling and beautiful and impossible. As a child, the only fairy tales I wanted to hear or read were Grimm's Fairy Tales, horrible, bloody stories sparing no details, stories that gave the promise of the fantasy but not without the horror of the reality. Hoffman's latest book speaks of these stories, even marinates in them.

The Story Sisters was released in June, but, being jobless, I was unable to afford the luxury and the library has not had it in stock or may not even have it at all. I have never asked. Fortunately, Shannon knew, and gave me the gift, as she has with so many incredible books before.

Love you, sister. No matter how I may continue to change, I will always love these books more than any other present.

To borrow my straightforward buddy Marth's phrase, "That is all.".