Snow drifts down, in that steady, not-too-heavy, I-mean-business pace that indicates it will, as forecasters predict, fall all day.

It is another vacation day for me, one of only five I’ve taken over Christmas that, thanks to the timing of the holidays, appears to add up to 10. I’ve been almost forced to take them because I ended the year with so much extra vacation time: 120 hours in all. The tally will drop to 80 as the year ends. Still a damn shame. I didn’t use the time because I couldn’t figure out where I wanted to go, or what I wanted to do.

I sleep until almost 9, and wake feeling fabulously rested. I try to push off the sense of dread that battles with my consciousness almost upon the opening of my eyes. It is a vacation day, my son is gone and I have no concrete plans.

Thoughts of shopping dance through my head and then exit to the side. Chase Manhattan tells me my checking account is down to $5. Tomorrow is payday, but debit cards are instantaneous and the mortgage payments I’ve put off in favor of Christmas presents wait to consume my paycheck with hasty greed.

Besides, shopping isn’t what I need. It’s an activity that brings mini sparks of joy, but distracts me from the fact that I feel completely without focus. And have for so very long now.

The job feels meaningless. In fact, worse than meaningless. It fills me with a sense of dread that I am beginning to realize no salary or incentive package can permanently alleviate.

With Pam out of the neighborhood and onto a boyfriend, my social life is lackluster again. Our once-daily contact has faded with amazing speed to maybe a couple times a week, and then almost always no more than a phone call.

Although I have good friends in Denver now, I see them rarely and reach out to them infrequently. They have lives of their own and I often feel it is hard for them, when I call out for help, to comprehend how desperate is my need.

Most of the time for these last several months, I find it hard to hold up my end of conversations, and as though I have little to contribute that is original, amusing, beyond the routine. Wasn't I sparkling once? Fascinating even to myself?

My love life is achingly empty, as it has been for years. I try, bravely I think, to reach out to the one person who has so long remained my shining hope. He does not respond. That light, which has grown so small and flickering over the months, goes out and I am in the dark, grasping for a switch, desperate to believe my hope was grounded in something grand, and not merely a sad mistake.

In an effort to dispel the gloomy thoughts that swirl around me in my house, I wipe snow off the car and hit the lightly traveled, snowy suburban streets.

My unfashionable but sturdy Saturn moves without pause, studded snow tires biting into the snow with seeming appetite. I feel confident, taking pleasure as I always do in driving in weather that leaves others cowering in their homes.

Even the library parking lot, usually a bee’s nest of SUVs and sedans vying for close-in parking, is quiet. I dump a book, “The Dummies Guide to the Middle East,” and two movies – one 16-year-old sugary sweet and one 40-something depressing – into the return slot. Immediately, I find my second book choice from yesterday, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Middle East Conflict” and grab it. I hope fervently that it, unlike the Dummies Guide, doesn’t make me feel stupid. How can anyone possibly read a book with such a title and fail to grasp what the author is saying? But I did it! Perhaps I should feel a sense of accomplishment? Then I move to the DVD stands in search of new movies. The DVD section is always popular. Even on this quiet day, four or five people stand in various spots around the two sections of selections, eyes roving the titles.

I am absurdly happy to find a vacant spot, an entire back side of DVDs no one else is purusing. Here, I can scan titles to my heart’s content, without worrying I am in someone’s way or waiting for someone else to finish. My joy is short-lived, however. A tall, blonde woman walks around the corner and stands slightly behind me, to my immediate left.

Even though I was clearly there first, she is scanning the titles in the same section, standing directly in my personal space. I feel uncomfortable and ridiculously resentful. I decide to stand my ground. Clearly, she does not know or is choosing to ignore library etiquette. Which loosely and nonverbally goes that when someone is perusing a section of anything at all, the second person should either stand far back and politely wait, perhaps even start reading a book they’ve picked up so as not to give the person any sense of urgency, or, best of all, move on to another section and come back to the other later, when the first person has gone.

Since she is not abiding by these simple rules, I squat there, peering at titles and occasionally grabbing a cover to read the back, far longer than I intended. I sense her resentment. But I stand firm, so long that she finally moves to another section. Or, more likely, simply finishes reading titles over my shoulder and moves on.

I feel petty but somehow amused. Doesn’t everyone think along these same lines at least once every day? Annoyed by the slow driver in the fast lane, who surely is not distracted or lost in thought, but driving there just to piss you off. Frustrated by the woman in front of you is writing, of all the archaic things in this world, a CHECK! Or is it just part of my misery, that I am so tied up in feeling bad I believe others are out to make me feel bad, too. Is this normal, or is this terrible?

Whatever it is, I know I am not alone, particularly at this time of year, in feeling pain. My divorced friend, new to my life in the last year, says her eyes filled with tears when she looked up during Christmas dinner, saw her happy, coupled relatives and felt overwhelmed by loneliness. Another friend’s mother cries over the phone to me on Christmas Day, beaten by fresh news of her daughter’s impending divorce. Three days before Christmas, another friend asks her husband to leave their home. The newspaper tells of a small girl dying on Christmas Day when she rides her new bike into the street in front of the family home.

My troubles are so small by comparison. The surface of my life a pretty package for which I should be grateful, but the loneliness underneath real.

In my core, I am optimistic, blindingly so. The best part of me hasn’t yet been tapped, I believe. It is waiting for me, the only one who holds the key, to open the floodgates and break it free.

I look up from this writing and see that the snow is still falling. I will find what I need to open those gates, and soon I believe. But not now. Now, at this moment, everyday life is calling. The driveway needs to be cleared, and I am headed for the shovel.

My son still believes in Santa Claus. Or at least, at 12, he's hanging on to some shred of that belief, because he must have serious doubts by now. Or maybe he is very elaborately leading me to believe in his belief.

Thus, I either did a very good or a very bad thing on Christmas Eve.

My ex and I bought the same present: Guitar Hero III, a computer game that seems sort of not-so-bad and perhaps even educational in that the player, equipped with a guitar specifically designed for the game, "plays" the notes as the music - represented by flashing lights - unfolds on the screen. It meets the Mommy Test of acceptable computer game, likely because I actually want to play myself.

By the time I discovered my ex had it, it was too late to exchange the game. So, at about midnight on Christmas Eve, having wrapped and situated all the gifts under the tree, stuffed the stocking and tossed into the trash can a cookie or two to give the appearance of a snacking Santa, I sat at my computer and wrote Robby a note.

The note came from Santa, natch, and read - partially - like this:

"Ran into your mother, who as you may know is a bit of an insomniac, this evening here. We had a lovely chat about you, but when I shared with her your wish list, it became clear I had erred and sent you a duplicate gift to your father's home."

I debated adding that since his father lives in bumfuck, it's easiest for him to exchange my gift instead of his dad's, but refrained.

Santa/I instructed Robby in the return of the gift, and that he should get himself another toy or game he wanted instead. He also encouraged Robby to keep up the good work at school, and "Help your mom around the house as much as possible; she appreciates it more than you can imagine."

I debated rephrasing this to say, "Do whatever your lovely mother says. You're 12 now for God's sake, the only man in that big house she bought almost entirely for you -- and I'm still watching." And refrained again.

Instead, I ended it with:

"Know that you are truly among my shining stars."

Signed, "Santa C."

Santa/I then added what I thought was a rather humorous P.S. It touched on a subject Robby had brought up a few weeks ago, about a news story he'd heard that Santas nationwide were being discouraged from saying 'ho-ho-ho,' for fear some women would be offended. "Isn't that ridiculous?" Robby had said.

Santa apparently agreed, as he wrote: "I enjoyed over-hearing your observations about the 'ho-ho-ho' debacle; what a bit of rubbish that was, eh?"

I taped this missive to the Guitar Hero III box and collapsed into bed.

He woke me at about 6:30. "Mom, come read this!"

Still bleary-eyed, I pored over it, feigning great surprise and amusement. "Oh yeah!" I said. "Gosh, I was so tired I barely remember it, but we did meet last night!"

Robby didn't ask any follow-up questions, such as, "What was he wearing? Is he really fat? How did he get in? What did you say about me?" or other such things that should have come naturally. And when the neighbor boy, who is 9 and definitely still a believer, came by to see Robby's gifts, he said "no" to my suggestion that he share the note with his friend.

Yet later, when the neighbor kids had come and gone, I saw him reading it again.

I am left to wonder what this means. I had been quite sure, based on the fact that he wrote separate wish lists for both his father and I, that he had abandoned the whole Santa thing. I had felt certain of it, too, because he grinned at me slyly while we shopped at Christmas Eve and said, "Are you getting things for me?" But I'd been sure mostly because he's 12, living in a modern world, where secrets about everthing from Santa to the birds-and-the-bees are early on disabused.

I was, in fact, relieved by the idea. No more watching my words, staying up til the wee hours to slide presents under the tree, remembering to put "From Santa" on some gifts and "From Mom" on others. No more deception, period.

But the balance beam we parents walk on this issue is so very thin. If we ask our children about their beliefs, we surely cause them to question it in their minds, perhaps even to question us. And almost none of us are really ready to break that magical bubble. On the other hand, we'd rather they learn it from us - the creators of the dream - than some playground friend who feels duty bound to share his newfound knowledge.

Yet he lives in a different world than many children, attending a school of only 25 K-8 students. How many of those 25 still believe? And how many of the rest know not to say anything? Could it be all 25, in one way or another, keep Santa alive? He is also an only child, without siblings to leak information to his ears.

So I say nothing. And wonder.

My son is smart and sensitive, particularly, I think, when it comes to his father and me. He relays to us both almost nothing but necessary information about the other and about his lifestyle in each home, rarely dropping a hint as to which home - if either - he prefers. After at one point telling me he hated his stepmother, he later said everything between them was fine. I do not know the truth of this matter, and do not ask because I believe he will varnish his answer.

So it seems plausible to me he's keeping up the charade not for himself, but for us. Because he believes we enjoy it and that it might hurt us to realize he is growing up, leaving such things behind. Perhaps he read the note so fervently because he realized it was from me, and found it amusing, maybe delighted that I had called him a "shining star."

Years from now, I'll have the answers to these questions. Someday, it will be safe to ask him if he thought Santa really wrote to him.

But for now, I stay quiet. And while part of me bemoans the drudgery of keeping up the ruse, another part of me hopes my son still believes in Santa. That, in a world over-run with bad news and broken hearts, he will always believe; if not precisely in Santa, in this wonderful intangible the jolly old fellow represents. That he believes forever in magic.

About half an hour ago, in the tall grass of the park near our home, I found George's tail.

It was near the ditch George liked to explore. Overgrown with bushes and low trees, stretching the length of our big park, it is a regular cat heaven. When we'd walk there, he'd disappear into this area, jumping out at us from time to time as if to say, "Surprise!". Once, we found him high up in a tree, looking down at us with great amusement in his green eyes.

At first, I dismissed this small tuft of fur as some cat's tail. Not mine. The spaces between the orange tabby stripes on this five-inch section - all that was left of this little animal - were too wide. I picked it up, studied it and dropped it. At the opposite end of the park, I turned around and ran back to it.

I brought it home and pulled out the photo album, searching for the picture of George with his tail, curled like a question mark over his head, walking toward me. Undeniably smiling.

Shocked, I noted the spaces between the stripes of his tail. The white tip, which I had never before noticed. Everything, down to the depth of color, was the same as the piece of fur in my hand.

I thought I had dealt with the loss of George, but this sight, an undeniable statement of his death, brought it all back. The most recent picture I have, of George stretched out on the carpet staring with some measure of boredom at a small, very much alive garter snake he'd brought into the house, is thumbtacked above my desk. I think I kept it there out of some small hope that the animal communicator was right and someday, he'd return. The picture was there to remind me that he could be out there, locked in someone's house somewhere, one open door away from home.

I have sat here, crying, morbidly stroking this stiff piece of tail, its texture just the same as George's soft coat. It's like I am petting him for the last time.

I'm meeting a friend out for a birthday drink in only about half an hour. It's time to wash my face, reapply my makeup, and throw away all that remains of George. Throw it deep into the trash can where Robby never will see it.

And think ahead to the kitten I plan to put under the Christmas tree for my son.

That little feline will be loved well and kept completely inside. Likely, all that love will create a cat with huge personality.

But I know, as I knew when I owned him, that George is that rare pet that comes along once in a lifetime - the best of its species, the one against which all other cats or dogs must almost unfairly be measured. These are the animals you feel lucky to own. As though this creature chose you, knowing you deserved and needed such a dazzling spark of life.

Perhaps, that day we first saw him in the Buena Vista Animal Shelter, when he so immediately captivated Robby that my son refused to even look at the younger kittens, that's what he did. He chose us.

Back from my drink, under dark skies, I take Ally for a walk to the park. George's tail is in my hand. I'm bound for the trash can there. I walked around on the path, away from the trash can that borders the softball diamond, north toward Kohl's, away from it again. I brush the fur across my cheek. I do not want to let it go. What harm would it be to carry it in my pocket? Something soft and reassuring, a reminder of something so fun and alive.

How much this desire is like other things in my life, surely in everyone's lives. I struggle with letting go of relationships that are dead. I cling to memories, to anything really, any small sign of hope that perhaps things can return to the way they were. I don't let go, no matter how damning the evidence that something is dead. Accepting the loss is giving up, losing control. How difficult that is for us all.

I almost walk by the trash can. It is with true effort that I stop the movement of my feet. I pull off my glove, stroke the fur with my hand, hold it over the can, hesitate and let it go.

POSTSCRIPT

As a final tribute, I'm posting here part of an old entry about George.

Jan. 19, 2006

My dog, cat and I went for a walk in the falling snow tonight.

Yes, that's right -- my cat goes, too.

George walks with Ally and I in rain and sun, dark and bitterly cold.

I used to shorten my walks when George first began accompanying Ally and me, conscious of his very short legs and a lung capacity I foolishly thought was compromised by size. Then, after several attempts to carry him in which he kicked and struggled to be free, I realized he likes our evening strolls. He follows Ally and me up and down the streets of our hilly neighborhood on walks that sometimes last 90 minutes.

Passers-by sometimes pull over, peering out of their car window to ask, "Is that your cat?" Yes indeed, I say, that's my cat. "He thinks he's a dog," I say this part in a loud whisper, so they understand how delicate is his image, and how deeply entrenched this conviction is in his wee kitty head. They laugh uproariously and pull away, shaking their heads.

Tonight's weather seemed to suit him especially well. I think it suited all three of us well.

We walked on sidewalks deep with snow, snow so fresh that almost no one had yet shoveled it. George alternated between lagging behind, sometimes crying piteously for us to wait, and sprinting past us, his tail fat as a bottle brush with excitement. He ran repeatedly off the sidewalk into the deepest snow -- more than knee deep on a cat. He chirped when I bent to pet him, so happy he didn't just bump his head against my hand but stood on his hind legs and arched his orange neck grandly to do so.

Ally loped ahead of us for the most part, sometimes giving short chase to nervous rabbits, sometimes dragging her snout through the fresh snow and snorting as it went up her nose. She dropped and rolled in it on her back, turning for a moment from black to white, two coal black eyes looking out from her snow-packed face.

She's a fine pet, too, with a serious and gentle soul. A dog trainer who met her told me she would kill to protect my son Robby and me. But I realize, with some measure of guilt, that she hasn't crawled under my heart like her quirky little brother.

He's a strange little fellow, with an admirable and comedic spirit. I already know he's the best cat I'll ever have.

Christmas brings with it a whole world of home ownership about which I had forgotten: Decking the halls.

As luck would have it, Peacock Drive lives up to its name. As of Dec. 2 - more specifically as of about 20 minutes ago during my most recent night time stroll - our street is most flamboyantly lit of all those in our sizeable neighborhood.

Some streets are almost entirely dark. On ours, you could read directions from a prescription bottle standing in the light from a dozen different, dazzling houses. Peer pressure definitely is at work here.

It began last weekend. I suspect it will continue to build through at least mid-month.

On an unseasonably warm late November Saturday, five neighbors on the northern end of the street - all either next to or directly across from one another - spent portions of their afternoons decorating their homes. I saw them scrambling across rooftops, balancing on ladders, tucking extension cords behind bushes and into sidewalk cracks, dragging unrecognizable inflatables into position on front yards.

That night, they lit up like five little Christmas trees, all in a row.

I walked by them later, alternately impressed and aghast at what I saw. A white elephant, standing about three feet tall and fairly dancing with white lights, balanced a gift wrapped in cheery red paper on his trunk, slowly lifting and lowering the trunk as though to say, "From me!" A small train appeared to roll through that same yard. Four three-foot tall cylindered trees, no more than circles of white lights, formed a mini-forest there. An inflatable Mickey Mouse, smartly attired in green and red, beamed at passers-by. White icicle lights bedecked both upper and lower level. Blue net lights cozied up to each bush. Large green and red candy canes lined the sidewalk. That was one house.

The others were equally as spectacular. An inflatable Grinch here, a family of caroling snowmen there, sets of those creepy white wire reindeer with eerily slow-moving necks grazing and staring from this yard and that yard, lines of lights that created a flashing diamond on the roof of one house, multi-colored lights that wrapped completely around the second story of another house, 16-foot trees lit from stem to stern, two sets of Santa and his reindeer flying into the dark of night from the roofs of neighboring houses. Logistically, this setup didn't work. If put into motion, the two sleighs definitely would have collided mid-air, spewing toys and reindeer parts all over Peacock Drive. Aesthetically, however, it was a pleasant sight.

These homes were not just decorated. They were decked out.

Down on our end of the street, the homes stayed dark. But pressure was building. Something I heard tell of called Keeping Up with the Joneses was at work.

For myself, I felt a pit deep in my stomach that slowly crept around and lodged itself near where - were I male - a wallet would rest. This was a financial investment I hadn't considered, and six years of house-free living had left me completely unprepared. But though I had not the advantage of fancy tools, dual incomes and Home Depot Visa cards, as the new and lone single female on the block, my house had to give a respectable showing.

Saturday, Robby and I melded with the throngs at Wal-Mart and emerged unscathed, having swiftly snapped up the last three boxes of mulit-colored icicle lights. I had admired them on several houses on nearby Mercury Circle. They were flashy, yet cool and a bit cutting edge. Best of all, no one on Peacock Drive had yet selected them.

Three hours later, fingers numb, my son having long since deserted me for warm, indoor play at the neighbors' house, I plugged in the lights that spanned the eaves along the house's lower level, stood back and grinned at the sight. My smile did a fast flip.

A 9-row section of lights, smack dab above the garage, stared at me blankly. An obvious gap in an otherwise perfect set of teeth.

I got out the ladder, jiggled, then pushed in each individual bulb in the section, hoping for the flash of light that never came.

Cold and discouraged, I retreated to the house and a cold beer.

An hour later, refueled and ready to do battle, I came back out. The spare bulbs were in hand. I was ready to pull out and test each bulb in the striking section.

Except that now, there were two. Two 9-row sections of broken teeth.

In a fury, I yanked them down. What had taken three hours to uncurl and put into place took five minutes to remove.

Alone this time, I returned to Wal-Mart.

The clerk tisked. "Oh," she said, looking at the boxes. "We've had lots of trouble with those."

I exchanged them for six $2 boxes of cool blue mini lights. No uncurling required.

My house looks, well, nice. But rather boring when compared with the beauty queens down the street. Thank God my nearest neighbor opted for the sophisticated look of plain white lights. That way, I don't feel quite so mousey.

Suzanne, the matriarch in that house, said they long since gave up on putting on a show.

She nodded toward their home as she explained this. I noticed a quartet of simple green-and-red wreaths attached to each post on the front of their house. A string of garland ran along the eave from the garage to the end of the front porch. A small herd of wooden reindeer stood near the front door.

"I'm really big into making sure it looks nice during the day, too - not just at night."

I nodded, and felt the pit return to my stomach as I looked at my house. Bland and normal in this late afternoon hour except for the strand of unlit lights that were visible only if you knew to look for them. This was an entire new aspect of which I hadn't even thought.

But I will let this one go for my first winter, and resign myself to the fact that it will take years of collecting to reach the lavish levels of many of my neighbors. The true test of homeowner winter preparedness is still to come. Blizzard season is right around the corner, and I am prepared to meet it.

As of Tuesday, for the first time in six years, I own a snow shovel. Steel core shaft, sure-grip resin sleeve, graphite construction, long-lasting galvanized wear strip. In a very serious shade of gray.