Firmware Not Fur, a Piece
Gliding Home for Christmas
GLIDING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, in cream serif capitals, over a winter-dusk sky running from blue-grey to warm amber behind dark pine trees. Snow lies on the ground and falls across the scene; a small cabin on the right has a snowy roof and two lit windows.
On the left, Charlotte Joanne smiles with her eyes closed, in a navy coat and thick cream scarf, her mittened hand on a long white cane with a red tip. In the middle, the chrome robot dog, J2O2, turns his nose towards the man on the right, her Golden Retriever Boyfriend, who is laughing, in an oatmeal knitted beanie, a sheepskin-collared brown jacket and a red-and-black check shirt, with a wooden sledge propped beside him.
The tagline: Sometimes the heart needs a little help finding home.
The story
Once, I believed I had to do everything on my own.
J2O2 and I — gliding through life, efficient and untouchable.
No tangled hearts. No messy entanglements.
Just forward motion.
Just me.
But Christmas had other plans.
A blizzard.
No power.
No internet.
And J2O2, bless him, without a signal to follow.
Halfway home, halfway lost, I heard the crunch of boots on snow.
And there he was.
Golden Retriever Boyfriend.
I had called him that in school, in the margins of my notebooks —
all flannel smiles and endless energy, too good and too loyal for a girl who dreamed of faraway cities.
I had outgrown childish things.
Or so I thought.
But as he reached out a mittened hand, teasing, steady, familiar...
I realized I hadn't outgrown kindness.
I hadn't outgrown laughter.
I hadn't outgrown home.
This Christmas, I didn’t lose my independence.
I chose to share it.
And maybe — just maybe — love isn’t the end of the journey.
Maybe it’s the glide home we didn’t know we were longing for.
#GlidingHomeForChristmas #GoldenRetrieverEnergy #HeartSignalStrongerThanGPS #SnowstormsAndSecondChances #ChoosingConnection #HomeIsAChoice #GlideAndPrejudice