It’s the limbo of it.
Christmas Day was full of traditions and purpose. Even the anarchy of consumption and indulgence is ambitious: A systematic approach to emptying fridge and filling belly.
Boxing Day, though. That’s a different story. The plan never rolls this far. Shiftless drifting from chocolate box to small screen, pottering, with a little tiding, chatting and thinking small thoughts about the future and of other Christmases. After days away from the routines that wedge me into my world, I’m starting to drift and I don’t like it.
I slump and I can’t imagine how I used to tick off my way down a to-do list, how I mustered myself to achievements, sensible decisions, and steps in the right direction. It feels like it’s all gone, for now, for today. Maybe that’s what resting is supposed to feel like. A disorientating dismount of the merry-go-round.
It won’t last.
Impetus is already gathering. Hurrying. An urgent urging drumbeat building. Driving. Funny how it starts with a clear out, a space-making. A fire, cackling as it crumbles everything to ashes so that there’s room for what’s new. This time, every year.
It’s time.
The shapeless, edgeless unease of the in-between days is important, it’s where the new year’s possibility is sewn. And this time, this winter’s turn, it could be different. It will be different. If I can just hold back the relentless. Resist the routine of doing just a little bit longer, I wonder what will grow. What’s already growing.
This year, this time.