A bedraggled Santa rang a wooden-handled bell next to an iron Salvation Army bucket. I slid a few coins into the black slot, tried not to let my eyes rest on his five-o-clock stubble. Red veins crowded his eyes, tiny unholy candy canes. His breath bathed me in tequila echo, in a sleigh of sadness no reindeer could lift. I fished my car keys out of my pocket.

"Miss. Senorita! You have spare change?"

Santa spoke with a Castilian accent, with the lilt and tumble of green chile Spanglish. His eyes caught mine, held them with the barbed wire of a thousand tired days. I knew he was supposed to shill only for charity, knew he must come from the Half-Way house with the plastic nativity figures stuck in brown-exhaust snow.

"Yes," I answered. I handed Santa a dollar, a hundred pennies for booze, for an hour of regret, a side of beer-bred silence.

"Gracias. I'll spend it on food. I will. I know you don't believe me, but I will."

I said Yes.

In early December I slid from 40 to 41, celebrated a birthday surrounded by the death of my father, the first twelve months since the death of my mother. I accepted greeting, love, greeting from friends over phone, over email, over website and handwritten letter.

Happy Birthday! They yelled, spoke my name with red-tailed beauty.

I could feel the prick of fun, feel it almost sink into my skin. I let it pass, let it tumble from my shoulders to the frozen ground.

No fun for me. I'm in mourning, I'm in deep depression, in a glass bell-tower of grief. Hit my tower with the palm of your hand. See? It rings pure, the low, slow-waved tones of despair.

Anger, the tick tock of slow clock sadness called my name.

"Yes," I whispered. I handed my mind a slice of emptiness, an unfilled sandwich, four weeks of absolutely fucking nothing. I said Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I didn't say No, not once in a dozen moons, not in September when my boys' school asked me to donate twenty-five hard-earned dollars and sixteen hours of time I didn't own. I sold my beloved banjo, split the money between the gods of education and the gold-back grocer of Wal-Mart. I ignored my schedule of door-to-door Avon work, let my perfume account slide, slide, evaporate into oblivion, walked the mile-and-a-half to my boys' school because I owned no car, held the hand of lonely students, read them stories, helped them sum and divide and fraction into understandable pieces.

I. Said. Yes.

I said Yes without thought, said Yes to beggars on the street, to the beggars in my own home. I ignored the call of the banker, the customer, the people who could make my life more stable, stronger, better, faster, bionic. I couldn't keep up my basic life obligations in my fury of Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

I fell.

Yes.

I'm searching for meaning, for a pocket of change, for an understanding of life that includes all the people that need help, that includes me, that includes love and tenderness. This world doesn't let up. It doesn't let up. I'm tired all the time, can't get ahead, can't meet my schedule, my obligations, my bills, the needs of my door-to-door customers. I can only surrender.

And in this last few days of the year, when I tabulate my life, my worth, the things I made happen this year, the things I failed, I can't figure a sum, can't determine a base value.

I can look at the days I could have made a difference in my own life, in my bottom line, in my own power as a Born As Woman. I can look at those days, curse my choice to put others, to put the sun, moon, stars, grass, dirt, ocean, child, man, concept, Santa, ahead of my own needs, desires. I can look at those days and cry, know I failed at my most basic feminist obligations, understandings. I held the world in my arms, let everyone tell me who to be, fell at the feet of my emotion, my desire to be everything to everyone in my life. In most ways, I failed my own person, my customers, my friends, my promises to others, the promises I made to myself.

And yet I see what happened because of Yes, because of my pattern, things that would never have happened if I kept a tight diary, a schedule of events, money, times matched with people to meet. A dozen children read more words, know more music, know arms can surround them with love. A few beggars had a warm meal. Animals ate better, a homeless shelter found six boxes of forgotten beauty Avon products I left in a fit of Yes. Fits of Yes. My year has been exactly that. Yes. Yes. A mountain of gift I couldn't afford.

Could I afford more if I said Yes less?

Am I who I am because I answer Yes to any question that reaches my heart, because I feel the pulse of the damn daily universe through my uterus, let it birth through my tired canal as if I were a wet-slave to everyone else's desires?

Or am I who I am in spite of it?

This next year I will answer this question, will know how to match spontaneity with calculation, resolve to find that elusive middle Mother Earth/Father Time mode, way of life.

I resolve.

Yes.

Birdie blogs at La Pajaro and Beauty Dish.