I'm sitting here at work on Christmas Eve, having drafted the letter I needed to prepare today for review in the new year. Now I'm just waiting out the clock till I can decently slip out the door and go for a run down at Murchison.
Is anyone else feeling singularly un-Christmasy this year? Usually by now I'd have listed to a couple of favourite tunes and had the Charlie Brown Christmas album on repeat (actually, I don't limit it to the festive season - it's a great example of West Coast Jazz).
It'll be good to see all the sisters plus Nik and JP. I hear Former Brother In Law is coming as well. Little Sister is apparently OK with it, although frankly I think it's going to be awkward and embarrassing (for everyone's point of view, including his). I dunno, I think the reason I'm fairly unaffected by holiday spirit this year is that there've been kind of a series of issues each year. The Christmas after the girls were born, I invited a couple of friends of the Ex and me over, because I thought she liked having people around and wouldn't like it being a lonely Christmas (I was epically wrong). The next year she and the girls went back a few weeks before Christmas. The year following, the day after Boxing Day, I got the phone call telling me I'd effed something up disastrously at work (which ultimately led to my sacking). Christmas 2013 was good, but then last year I was out of work with no prospect of a job. I try not to think too much about when I was married - not even about the good bits - but I can't quite block out the feeling of contentment on Christmas Eve when I'd make myself hot chocolate with rum, read the nativity narrative, and then turn the lights out and just spend a while looking at the steadily growing Christmas Village that she and I had slowly been building. It was a wonderful time in my life, but the truth is that right now I'd love to be able to delete it from my memory.
Image from here
"Why did you join the Foreign Legion?"
"I wanted to forget".
"What did you want to forget?"
"I don't know - I've forgotten. The system works."
In case you're wondering: no, I'm not about to run off and join the Legion. If I'm in that much of a hurry to die, it's a lot easier cheaper for me just to fly up to Port Moresby and walk through town at night waving a wad of money.
I think I'll give Midnight Mass a pass tonight. I can't really explain why, except that I haven't been an especially good Catholic this year, and I don't find I'm really in the right frame of mind anyway. Going would feel like another attempt to hang on to something that's gone.
I can't think of anything more to add. This is really just a brain dump anyway. I should post more later: right now I'm going to wrap up here and head off for that run. I'm looking forward to it.
More later.
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