For Days of Auld Lang Syne

Christmas has passed, the anticipatory excitement has peaked, and we are well into our collective denouement. I enjoy this time of year, I really do. But those last few days leading to the final execution of Santa’s big arrival really drains the life out of me. And for all y’all saying that you “miss those days” because your kids are approaching or are well within adulthood, I don’t want to hear it. These are the days, yes, but these days are also A LOT of work and I, for one, look forward to a Christmas Day on which I am not awoken in complete darkness. I’m still recovering a week later.

It’s New Year’s Eve and as much as I want to forget the pain of this year, I know I won’t be able to. In fact, I don’t want to forget so I’m going to sit here in my corner, lick all of these fresh psychological wounds, and tap my foot as we await that marvelous double dose of mRNA from Pfizer or Moderna. My kids have gone through a lot with this pandemic and that is one big reason why I won’t be able to forgive or forget 2020. They’ve developed this new level of hypervigilance, are acutely aware of the dangers of our multigenerational living situation, and I worry most about my oldest. He keeps saying “but 300,000 people have died” whenever I try to help him cheer up about this year. I can’t argue with that, it’s devastating and he’s right to be upset. What I have said to him is essentially what I tell myself over and over whenever anything crappy or horrible comes my way—lean in and try to listen to what it’s saying, embrace the shittiness smell and all (yes, I DO use those exact words), and search for your own little way to reverse the course of shite. I forced myself to do that around 2018 when I began writing this rambling newsletter. Some weeks it was a grueling task to find humor and light in everything I went through but I thank god I did all that before a pandemic smacked me silly. I’m far from normal but I would be sooooo much more abnormal right now had I not pushed myself to explode through words.

The Christmas tree is now crispy and if I breathe on it the wrong way, I’m going to have to vacuum for the eleven hundredth time this month. The decorations everywhere are beginning to grate on my nerves and the elves have not moved since Christmas Eve. In fact, Alfie and Sully Sparklepants are passed out in our manger a little too close to the cresh if you ask me. Mary and Joseph have their hands up as if to say “seriously? This after giving birth in a barn?”. Even one of the three kings has fallen off his camel. So much for that frankincense he had tucked under his arm. Tomorrow, the decorations will come down and 2021 will arrive, painfully unaware of just how much we have looked forward to its arrival. Many have expressed wanting to slam the door on 2020 and I sure do get that, lord knows I do. But before you slam that door, take a few moments of reflection to find whatever beauty this year offered up in disguise. It’s there and you will find it. I’m certain 2021 will have its own share of darkness. My plan is to just open my arms to whatever this new trip around the sun brings and hope that, at the very least, it comes with 6 vaccinations happening in rapid succession in my home. Cheers to 2021 and cheers to you for finding and making beauty in all the pain of 2020. And when we have all been shot up with the Pfizer or Moderna miracles, we’ll gather again and “We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet for days of auld lang syne.”