No Merry Gentlewoman Here, but Trying

Merry Christmas.

I'm trying real hard to be merry. I have an obscene amount of chores to complete today, so I will be focused on the seemingly endless tasks at hand. It's so difficult doing it all yourself, and I don't know what I can get done by four p.m. I finally got around to repriming the small bathroom--now all I have to do is paint the ceiling (again) and work on the walls tomorrow.

I feel empty--it's hard to describe the feeling, but it's like a heaviness in your chest that you can't seem to release. Does that description even make any sense?

I wish everyone the magic of the holidays--may it be filled with love, laughter, family, and realized expectations.

As for me, I'll do my best to be chipper for Emily. We'll go to Mass, sing some carols, drink some hot chocolate, read the Nativity Gospel and the Night Before Christmas. There's time enough for tears when she goes to sleep; then it's just me and the demons. You would think they would have the courtesy of leaving me alone on the holidays, but they seem to perturb me all the more scratching at ugly, unhealed, and festered wounds.

I remember a quote from our high school literary magazine that a young woman wrote, "We're not afraid of the dark; we're afraid of what lurks there." In the darkness of the night there is ample time for soul-searching, for realizing inadequecies, for questioning why things are the way they are, and for shaking the fist at the sky.

The night is unmercifully long when you're alone.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Unrelated Thought:

Lots of people believe I made a mistake quitting my current firm to move to a contract (read: temporary) situation since I could report to a new manager. I just don't think moving four cubicles up is enough of a mental break from him, no matter how nice my new manager is. It was a complicated decision, and I did think it through. I hope it was "right."