Tag: 354

354 // Bah Humbug

I’ve never been a big fan of the Christmas season. Oh, there are things I like about the holiday. I like the lights, and the food, and the time spent with family, but all the shopping, shipping, and stressing about gifts and cooking is just more time spent away from the things I enjoy doing for me.

Instead of giving in to disappointment, I’m trying to think of these weeks as time outside of time, a break from productivity and passions to get a little perspective before the new year begins. It’s helping, but I miss my books, my journal, my blog, my courses. I miss sitting and silence.

‘Tis the season for giving of the self, I know, but with the pandemic and so much of life and tradition put on hold or cancelled entirely, it’s hard to get into a festive mood and a half holiday or less hardly feels worth the effort.

I don’t mean to be a grinch. I wish the season found me in better spirits, but this year has been too hard on me—too hard on us all!—and I can’t seem to find my holiday cheer, or perhaps it can’t find me. My hope is that come Christmas morning when all that stress is behind me and there is nothing left but to enjoy good food and time with family, I’ll finally find the Christmas spirit that eludes me now.

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Today did not start out as well as yesterday but it’s all my own fault. I didn’t stick to my dietary restrictions and paid the price all night. I was up early all right but unable to be productive or even useful. So, I opted to start my winter break a little early and stay home to rest and think about how I can better learn to control my cravings and do what is best for me in the long run rather than what is satisfying right now.

I feel very guilty about it though. I hate to call in on either Mondays or Fridays. I know that’s when I am needed most. At the same time I have a suspicion that I am overestimating my value and the more likely I’m neither missed nor missing much at all.

The day spent updating my Ko-fi page and tweaking the look of Zen and Pi but very little in the way of real writing got done. I tried to pull a few words out of myself but my mind is a wasteland and there isn’t much more it’s good for now than dragging around the lethargic meat bag I’m calling a body these days. I’m being dramatic, I know. Maybe I’ll go and let myself succumb to what my body is so desperately telling me it needs: a good long nap.

I’ve had a good sleep and I’m feeling better, more energized, more myself. I’m meeting my wife and her coworkers for drinks and afterward we’re seeing Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I’ve been looking forward to this for a month now and I won’t let a little chronic illness or a poor attitude get in the way of enjoying it. Time to snap out of it.