For many people, Christmas is just a time of family, friends, celebration, gifts, joy and  blessing. For me, it’s a quiet day. Christmas eve for me was crazy. I had to work, but fortunately the snow meant I could leave at noon. I ended up having to walk to and from work, plus to and from the drivers services center all in the snow and in unshoveled sidewalks. All in all, I ended up walking 10k that day. Some readers may think that is a very long way, others may not think it’s much. For me, it’s normally not very much — I’m a runner and trained for a marathon this past year.  But I’m still sore and injured and I was in pain — it takes a lot of core strength to stumble through the snow.
After, I was cold, wet and exhausted. I was supposed to go to a friend’s place for a party and dinner, but I was so tired. I also felt in pain emotionally — lonely, weary from the past, weary from the flux and a bit angry at situations.   So I stayed home. I also felt guilty because I had no strength to walk — round trip (I had bad bus-luck) to my friend’s place. I hope her cat’s okay.
So I had a tough, tough birthday, a tough tough Christmas Eve and had little motivation to even face Christmas day. Part of me even thought “if there’s another huge dump of snow, at least I can stay home and knit”.  But the traditional Christmas day came.  I got up — finally wrapped the gifts — and straightened up my place enough so it wasn’t too embarrassing.  Then Dad came — and dug out the abominable snow car so that I could go TV shopping tomorrow — and drove me to my parent’s place.
Christmas day was a quiet day, dinner at my aunt’s place, long chats with my cousin’s daughter about Cats — and baking (she’s… er… 6? Grade one).  It was nice. Traditions were everywhere. My dad putting stockings together for my brother and myself. Family Brunch. Then it was time for the gifts and a rest before going to my aunt’s place.
More gifts and then a traditional dinner and dessert.  Now that I’m home again, I realize a few things. Many people make New Years Resolutions. Others look at their Birthday as the time of change and reflection in their lives. I get both at about the same time. This is definitely a time of thought and transition. This next year is going to be different.  I don’t know how. I don’t know what it will bring. I had an unexpected conversation that includes the presentation of a door. A door that I can choose to walk through. It could be in parallel to dreams. Dreams that are shattered. It could be in parallel to options that I could pursue — though they don’t delight me. They are in parallel to the status quo but probably not with something I’m seriously considering.
Does that make sense? Probably not. That’s okay though. It reminds me that this is now a new year. The last year is over. The year of Hell is done. The year where I would like to forget everything except a few precious memories. A dear friend called this past year the Dark Horse Year and while I didn’t realize it would apply to me, it definitely did. She’s mentioned to me that this next year would be the ‘Good Luck Year’. It may sound strange but this friend is usually right about things like this, and as this is a generally positive perspective, I will choose to accept it and believe it.
So for now, I’m going to relax, try to overcome this stress and pain I’m feeling. Forgive where forgiveness is needed, and start looking towards the future. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll find hope and be shown mercy.