Jennifer’s Carol

There had been no phantom door knocker, no midnight visits from well-meaning ghosts, not even a cheerful invitation to a Christmas dinner. But something changed within Jennifer that morning, and it just so happened to be December the 25th.

Without logic or explanation, Jennifer discovered that she liked herself. Failures that once opened beneath her like gaping pits since she’d graduated college used to haunt her every step. She hated herself for trying anything new, because her efforts always felt simple and unskilled. Just a night earlier, she had wept into her pillow as a force of habit, an expulsion of energy on the prospect of another night alone. She didn’t need a ghost to remind her of the various loves she’d lost over the years. It had been her regular habit to catalogue them, weeping over a block of cheese or a microwaved stack of pancakes.

Yet – she would never think to condemn any of her kindergarteners for failing. Of course not! They were children who depended on her to learn how to write the letter ‘e’ and twenty five others, and numbers that could combine to infinity. There was so much for them to learn, and she forgave them easily for their faults and mistakes. They didn’t know better. Well, maybe she didn’t know better either.

Today, she didn’t criticize the woman standing before her in the mirror. Her hair stood up in messy knobs and her face had a pale, flaky quality to it. The cutesy pine tree pajamas she had guiltily bought clung to her round body, yet she felt no ill will toward this woman. She recognized a comrade; someone who had been beside her all forty-some years and hadn’t given up, despite harsh mental lashings day in and day out. It made no sense to keep ruthlessly hurting her, this woman she had been since she was a baby.

Jennifer lingered in the shower, taking in the scents of honey and vanilla as she scrubbed herself pink. She dried everything but her hair and tucked it messily under her seafoam green snow hat – the one with the big sparkly ball on top given to her by one of the kids in her class. She assumed nothing would be open on Christmas Day. Yet there was a sparkling thrill of expectation in the air.

The streets were wide and grey with snow pushed to the sides, edges tinged with black grime. She used to feel that way about Christmas. There was no better representation of the change she felt than by simply looking up. Every house on her block had a wreath on the door, a tree in the window, or a sled in the yard. Everywhere spoke wordlessly of the holidays and she felt a tinge of regret that she had never bought a tree herself.

It had been nine years since her parents died in the car accident. Nine years and three weeks since she’d last spoken to them. The guilt had settled over her heart like wax, caking in the holes with grief and self-hatred where love and compassion were needed. Half-engaged attempts to date were abandoned like her embroidery, crochet, knitting, and art projects. She lived in icy isolation for nearly a decade because Jennifer never felt she deserved anything better.

But today, she did.

The shelter was closed, but Jennifer knocked anyway. A bleary-eyed old volunteer answered the door. He had stopped in to feed the cats and dogs. She convinced him to let her adopt two cats. Jennifer named them “Want” and “Iggy.” She took them home, and her heart melted at the cozy responsibility of caring for two little beings who needed her.

At twilight, the cats having hidden themselves under the bed and the dryer respectively, Jennifer sat on the couch and turned on the tv, expecting some of her newness of self to fade. But where she looked to find fear, she found comfort. There were other souls in the house. She had chosen them. She wrapped a piece of soft yellow yarn around the long needle and started, once again, to knit something. She wasn’t sure what, but she knew she would finish it, without help from ghosts, or spirits, or stories.