Christmas 2020

I'm feeling rather blue this Christmas. I get this way every year, but this year is especially hard.  Every year I feel as though things will never be the same, and this year I feel smothered by that feeling.

Keep chugging along I suppose...

Four Years Ago

 It's been four years today that my older brother, Dusty, passed away.  Time seems to be measured in Before Death and After Death of him.  Other time landmarks pale in comparison.

I miss him greatly and often wonder what he would think of the political climate in the US, the Mandalorian, Star Trek Discovery, and COVID.  He was a hermit by nature, he would be thriving during COVID lockdowns.  

I still get teary-eyed and I know that if I talked about it, people would quietly think that I need to move one and let go.  I understand that sentiment to a degree...the relationship of a sibling seems nothing to that of parent/child or even spouses.  I would be disinclined to agree though, for when children experience trauma and struggles and have only each other to rely on for safety, care, sometimes basic needs...it's a bond that grows much deeper than one might think.

I miss him.  There's not much else to say.

Hugs

Before reading this post I'd like to say for the record, I do not encourage anyone to hug right now unless the person you are hugging is in your "bubble" and hopefully COVID free. One of my new favorite quotes from a book I recently read is about hugs:

"When you hug someone, you learn something else about them.  An important something else."

I happen to be a hugger and believe I can tell a lot from the way a person hugs.  Let me rephrase, I am a selective hugger (which maybe says a lot more about me than I wish)*.  Emotion tends to translate through hugs and having not been able to hug friends and family in a while, it's one of the few interpersonal actions I miss**.

Anyway, any guesses where that quote exists?

* I am known to hug random people...I apparently appear very maternal to individuals under stress and having offered a hug to those people, they willingly accepted (and they weren't pickpockets!).  I also rarely turn down a hug.

** I sound terrible saying this, but I don't miss much about social interaction.  I miss only a smidgen about it...all the rest I manage to continue on with virtually or in some other manner to meet my own personal needs.  I don't feel like I need interpersonal moments.  But hugs...yea, I miss hugs.

Too Intimate

 I always feel weird telling people what book I'm reading.  It feels so intimate and I immediately feel judged.  Although I care less now than before about being judged, I still care with regards to certain people.  I suppose it's those people whose opinions are less often bestowed but when done so, matter to me, or those people whom I feel only know me one-dimensionally and I'm afraid they'll see behind my wall before I'm ready to let them inside.  

Admittedly, walls or not, there's just something intimate with books.  If I were given an unsolicited book by a person, it means he or she thought about me, or what I might like to read, with enough care and compassion to actually go through with that gifting.  It's not like a vacuum where any one will do.  It's not like a TV, a watch, or even a pair of sunglasses. It required thought!

And likewise, if I purchase a book for someone, I don't want to get just any book.  I want to get one that I care about (or I think the reader will care about and ideally both things happen).  I know that whatever the reader thinks about the book could be reflected onto me.  Yet another level of intimacy!

Anyway, if you find yourself here reading, I'm curious...what book would you get for someone?

Home

My kiddo stayed home today.  She had an upset stomach. In these days of uncertainty, I opted for keeping her at home and picking up homework.  

It makes me think of when I was a kid staying home from school and waiting for my brother to come home with my homework.  If either of us was sick, the healthy-in-school one would have to go to the other's teacher after school to collect books and assignments.

Ahhh, the good old days.

Discomfit

 I had a dream last night about the book I just finished.  I don't recall much of the dream other than the word "discomfit".  It kept coming up over and over again.  I woke up this morning very confused, thinking that I had just fallen asleep (which was not the case).  As I woke, scrambling to stop the blaring noise that was my alarm clock, the word discomfit kept coming to mind, as if I had just been saying it.

At that point in time I was not discomfited, rather quite annoyed at having to wake up from whatever it was that had me bound in a dream of fictional characters brought to life by my imagination.

Christmastime 2020

 Christmastime this year feels way harder than other years.  Maybe not as bad as the year my brother died.  Perhaps not as bad as the year my dad died, but thankfully, it's far enough in history for me to not remember.  Anyway, it feels hard this year.  It feels lonely.  It feels disjointed.  It feels forced.  I don't normally have this issue but this year....this weird year...I'm pushing myself into this season in ways I didn't have to before.

I realize part of it has to do with working-from-home, being more isolated than I might otherwise.  It has to do with anxiety about unknowns (how will the future go, will I still have a job, do I have to go back to the office, will my loved ones prevail against the ominous COVID...).  It has to do with over-spending.  It has to do with over-eating and not exercising enough.  It has to do with no closure (seeing people daily to not seeing them at all).  It has to do with my general mental health always waning.

But alas, time ticks on and so must we...

So, here's to some positives:

• I don't have to drive to the office every day and I get to work from home.  
• My kiddo is doing well, learning in person, and so far, staying safe.
• I am so fortunate to still have a job, and an interesting one at it (not always in love with it, but intrigued).
• I have been walking and talking with/to friends each week...something I had not been doing until COVID Quarantine.

Here's to hopefully getting words down more often.

Until then,

Steph