red coffee cups and full moons

Tonight, the full moon shines on me as I sit in our veranda, enjoying the cool November breeze.  The street is still, except for a few tree branches swaying in the wind.   Everyone else is asleep, long gone to the land of dreams.

I sip on my peppermint mocha, taking in the contrast of mint against the fuzziness of chocolate and coffee.  I shiver slightly in the cold wind, but as the hot liquid goes down a comforting warmth spreads across my body.

There is something about red coffee cups and full moons that fill me with hope.  It's something incomprehensible, even to me.  Perhaps it's the memories each one evokes; of happier days and of better times.  Perhaps it's the lull of doing something as fundamentally mundane as watching the night sky.

Tonight, it dawns on me that Christmas is here again.  For the longest time, I despised Christmas because the holidays only served to remind me of that gaping hole I had inside.  But I was wrong, because, above all things, Christmas was a season of hope.  Amidst all the holiday rush and madness, there is the promise of something better -- a promise to share a part of yourself with the world, and a promise of wonderful moments to come.

And tonight my spirits tingle with the hope that there is something better for me out there, if I only know where to look.

Sometimes you can find happiness in a coffee cup and a full moon.