It’s the day before Christmas Eve. Christmas Adam. Christmas Eve Eve, as it were. I’m not working today, except that I kind of am working. I can’t really disconnect altogether, so I have to check in, monitor email, answer the phone, that sort of thing. But I’m not going to sit at my desk. I’m not even looking at my to-do list or my calendar. I’m here to respond to crises and to put out fires. I’m here if anyone needs me. All I ask is that no one should need me.
I got my COVID booster on Tuesday, and I felt OK, though tired, on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. But when my immune response kicked in, it really kicked in, and I spent Wednesday evening on the couch, immobile, until my husband finally woke me up and made me go to bed at 9 o’clock, where I remained until 7 this morning. Today, I feel just fine. Bring it on, Omicron. Do your worst.
OK, don’t do that. That wasn’t a challenge. That wasn’t a gauntlet thrown. It was just a figure of speech.
*****
It’s Christmas Eve and I normally love Christmas Eve. It’s usually a peaceful day of quiet preparation and surrender. Anything that hasn’t been cleaned, purchased, or prepared by December 24 is going to stay just as it is and we’ll find a substitute or a workaround or we’ll live without it. Today doesn’t feel peaceful. I feel unprepared and scattered and panicky that time is running out because time is always running out.
I also usually get to take off for the last week of the year, so Christmas Eve is usually the first or second day of a lovely time at home with family, going to movies and museums and visiting friends and family and just being. This year, however, I can’t take the whole week off. It seems that no one can. Everyone I know is working harder than ever, and we’re all tired and out of sorts and stretched too thin. It’s been a year of loss and grief and now Omicron is coming to suck the last bit of fun out of life, just in time for Christmas. Maybe you are feeling Christmassy and joyful and peaceful today. I hope so. But Scrooge has absolutely nothing on me right now.
*****
Merry Christmas! Yes, it’s December 25. I’m not quite so out of sorts today. It’s 9:45 AM and I’m waiting for my children to wake up. That’s what happens when they grow up. You wake up early on Christmas morning, and you wait for them. I made bacon this morning, and a pan of cinnamon rolls is in the oven now. That is our traditional Christmas breakfast. Don’t come around here looking for vegan spa cuisine.
I did what I thought was my last shopping trip on Thursday, and then I found that the asparagus that I bought was rotten, and I also forgot an ingredient for the pineapple stuffing that my husband loves with his Christmas ham. So I went to the store to get my last-minute ingredients. While I was there, I remembered that I hadn’t gotten sunflower seeds yet. My older son likes sunflower seeds, so I always put a bag in his stocking. And then I thought that I didn’t have enough stocking stuffers for either of the boys, so I went to the drugstore to get some candy and gum and random odds and ends.
The store’s PA system was playing a song that I hadn’t heard before, a song that had a Christmassy instrumentation and beat, with lyrics about slapping someone in the head. Well, I thought. That is a bracing lyric, a stand-up-and-take-notice kind of lyric, but not exactly the words of comfort and joy that I needed to hear at that moment. I found what I needed and I got in line, where an old lady was standing in that hesitant, half-in and half-out kind of way that suggested that she wasn’t sure how the line worked and where she should stand.
“Are you in line?” I asked.
“No, no,” she said. “I’m waiting for my husband. You go ahead.”
“Thank you,” I said, and I did. And then I saw a very old man walk toward the old lady. “You go ahead now,” I said.
“No no no,” they said in unison. “We’re still deciding.”
I got in line. “Stocking stuffers?” the lady asked me.
“Yes!” I said. “I realized this morning that I had forgotten the sunflower seeds and the candy and gum.”
“I remember,” she smiled. “Yes, we always got candy for their stockings. They all liked different candy.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Mine are 20 and 17, and they still love candy in their stockings, but they like different kinds.”
The man chimed in. “20? Is he a local student or is he home for the holidays?”
“He’s at University of Maryland,” I said. After two years of community college, my son was just accepted as a transfer student at the University of Maryland, and we paid his enrollment fee, so he is officially a Maryland student. He’s very happy about this, and we’re very happy for him.
“Maryland,” the man said. “Good for him!”
And then really nothing happened. I paid for my stocking stuffers, and I said Merry Christmas to the nice old couple and they said Merry Christmas too, and we went on our way. I got into my car, and another very old lady, probably too old to drive, had just gotten into her car, parked in the space facing mine. She was waiting for an opportunity to drive through and avoid backing out, so I backed out quickly so she wouldn't have to wait. It was the least I could do. Merry Christmas.
*****
Now it's December 27, and I'm driving home from Philadelphia. Leaden gray sky, bare trees, still and cold air, and light snow falling. A perfect Christmas vacation weather day.
It's Monday but it doesn't feel like Monday, just like yesterday didn't feel like Sunday. Even if you're working Christmas week, the days blend together until you can't tell one from another. I'm not working today, unless you count the flurry of emails that I wrote and answered this morning, but I'll be working tomorrow and Wednesday and Thursday.
Christmas was lovely and we had a nice day yesterday, too; but now I can't pull my head out of the gloom again. I don't know why. Grief, COVID news, work stress, and everything else just keep piling up and I don't feel like doing anything I have to do. I'm just sad. And I hate being sad.
*****
But enough of that. Let's talk instead about my sister's dumbass dog. Well, he's a sweetheart and he's adorable but he's a dumbass. I walked him this morning. The rest of the house was asleep and the neighborhood was peaceful and quiet, and Duke and I set out for our annual Christmas week walk.
I sent him out to the backyard first, hoping that he’d take care of his morning routine on the premises, obviating the need for me to clean up after him. Nothing doing. Then I waited while he sniffed around his own front yard. “Go ahead,” I said. “This is the perfect place. Do it here, and then I can make Will or Ethan clean it up.” He looked at me, clueless but eager, ready to explore.
Of course, he did his terrible business five minutes later, in front of a house two houses down from my sister’s. He did it right on top of a pile of leaves and twigs and the whole pile of organic matter stuck together in an utterly revolting clump. As I bent over scooping up the mess with my plastic bag-covered hand, I wondered, having already been seen trying to clean up, if I could get away with just leaving it there. Who would know, right? But I did the right thing, and we kept going, me carrying the plastic bag of poop and Duke strutting happily along as though he hadn’t just dropped toxic waste on his neighbor’s lawn.
The morning was damp, and Duke loves to sniff the grass on damp mornings. I tried to get him to walk in the road, quiet and deserted on the Monday of Christmas week, but he kept pulling back to the curb, to his beloved grassy-smelling grass. “Does it not all smell the same?” I asked him. He crouched down and pooped again, this time on a clean, dry spot, making it easy for me to collect with my one remaining bag. “That’s it, buddy,” I said. “We gotta go back home now. I’m out of plastic bags, and I’m carrying two sacks of crap, which is two more than I want.” And is that not a metaphor for life at the end of 2021? I don’t know a single person who’s not carrying around a load of crap in each hand.
*****
I mean, I thought it was funny.
******
I keep thinking about why it feels like I don’t have any time. I don’t think I’m doing any more than I used to. I don’t have to drive to work, so that’s time saved. I still have a full-time job and several volunteer jobs and a house to clean and laundry to do and cooking to avoid but I have always had those things. I’ve always been this busy. But it always feels like I have so little time, like I’ll never be able to finish anything. So I tried to figure out why I feel that way, and I think it all comes down to mortality. It feels like I have less time because actually, in the actuarial sense, I do have less time. The older I get, the less time I have to live, statistically.
It’s December 29. It was dark at 5 PM but tomorrow it won’t be dark until 5:01 or so. 2021 is dying but the darkest part of the year has passed. My life is not getting any longer but the days are about to and when that happens, I’ll probably stop writing about death and dog poo. No promises, of course. Meanwhile, we still have a houseful of Christmas treats. The tree is still fragrant and twinkling. We’re all cozy and safe. Everything is fine. Happy New Year.
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