Sometimes I think Robin looks like Winston Churchill, sometimes she looks like Popeye. But why put any other labels or comparisons on her, she is her own spirit, radiant and evolving.

We are close to the holiday season, I can tell from the Black Friday ads beginning to appear online. They have stolen our Thanksgiving for sure, and people are loving it.

This is supposedly a time for family, but for Maria and me, this is a bittersweet time, we don’t really have family to spend the holidays with for all kinds of reasons, and the appearance of Robin in my life has caused me to feel some of the sadness and complexity of the holidays.

For Maria, for me, and for so many other people.

When Robin was born, I went to New York City every week or so for a month. I wanted to see the baby, but as much or more, I wanted to help Emma. She didn’t need all that much help, but I did get to see Robin.

New York City is a tricky trip for me, it is expensive, and involves  getting up in the middle of the night, much driving back and forth to the train station, and a day of work gone. I just can’t do it every week.

I broke up my family nearly a decade ago, holidays mean a completely different thing since. On Thanksgiving, Maria and I will go to a favorite inn just for the day, to eat a Thanksgiving Dinner and be grateful for what we have. We are clinging rather stubbornly to the idea that the holiday is about gratitude, not discount shopping.

Family is not an option for us

We are grateful for our lives, and for one another.

But my daughter and Robin will spend the holidays with the other family, the one I left behind when I moved to the country and got divorced. I am not comfortable going down there over the holidays, and i think I would make everyone else uncomfortable, even though I am sometimes invited.

Often in my life, I see life as a series of rings and circles, and I am always standing outside of all the farm. My farm is the only place where I am standing in the center, Maria by my side, or me by hers.

Emma’s in-laws will be there in New York, they are arriving this weekend, and so will my ex-wife Paula, I think I would be an awkward intrusion, even if no one would say so. And I would not be comfortable going there with Maria, nor would I be comfortable spending any holiday without her.  Emma always invites me, but it doesn’t feel right.

New York is a tough place to visit over the holidays, and the in-laws are already there, and they have come a long way to get there.

So my life with my granddaughter will enter a different phase, I believe, I will not be there for awhile, and she will not be here for awhile. Baby logistics make trips North difficult, we will just have to sense one another, I think that is possible.

Emma goes back to work in a week or so, Robin will be in day care, the window closes a bit.

I get photos and updates once or twice a week, and you know what? That is okay. That is what is natural, that is what works in our lives. If I didn’t want that, I should have stayed behind, that would have been a kind of death for me.

I’ll make do with photos, and some phone calls, and get used to the idea of making my own holiday with Maria. That is pretty great.

This is where i chose to be, this is where I want to be, this is my destiny.  Life is very much a give-and-take, you get one thing, you give up another. Nobody can have it all, and I have a lot, a wonderful life, almost beyond imagination.

This Thanksgiving, we will be celebrating the life we put together, out in our inn. This year, there will be another person at the table, even if she is far away. I’ll be raising a glass of good wine to Robin, and for  her new life, and giving thanks for her, and for our relationship, in whatever form it takes.