This is the final shared blog topic with my friend Andrea. You can find her post here
Last year I spent the holiday season living in the house of my friend Jennifer’s parents. My dad’s house had sold before I had a chance to find another permanent place, and the renters who were living in Jennifer’s folks’ house had moved out somewhat abruptly. It was a perfect solution to what could have been an expensive and difficult problem.
Though the house was comfortable, in a nice neighborhood, and served all my needs, I never felt truly at home there. It was a welcome way station before my next jump which I hoped would bring me into a place that was completely my own. I had my bed, but I sat on someone else’s furniture, cooked in someone else’s kitchen, and washed in a shower that was always too short for me.
However, as Christmas drew near, I decided that I wanted to decorate the place nonetheless. I hung a wreath on the door, put up my lighted holly garlands, and hung my stocking at the fireplace. I remember writing a blogpost about all of this here, and I joked that it would take a miracle for my stocking to be filled. Then on Christmas Eve, and thanks to a good old-fashioned Catholic miracle (in the form of an sneaky dear friend) the stocking was filled.
Jump ahead a full year and I again have hung my stocking over the mantle of my fireplace in my home. However, this year I don’t think I will be visited by ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come (or pretty much anyone). The crackdown of COVID restrictions, coupled with the shrinking of my bubble, will guarantee that there will be plenty of room in this inn, but no visits, no celebrations, no stocking stuffers.
But unlike last year when I was struck by the stark emptiness of the stocking, I think this year, my stocking is already pretty full. A cursory glance at its contents shows me
- A home that is beautiful, comfortable, and all mine. One which I hope will be a center of life and a gathering place when that is possible.
- My daughter has remained healthy and safe through the pandemic, moving out of NY to Colorado Springs near her mother and coping with longer term health issues.
- Most of my friends and I have thus far been able to avoid contracting the Corona Virus, and we wait in hope for effective distribution of the vaccine.
- I have met a lot of people during the past year and made some friends for different lengths of time, and I have grown closer (even in distance) to the friends I have.
- I have had friends who helped me and friends I have been able to help.
- I have been truly blessed to have a a therapist who has walked this journey with me for some time now and who continues to believe (and helps me to believe) that the final quarter of my life will be the best.
- The pain in my shoulder and neck that was so debilitating through the autumn months has faded completely to where I feel no pain or tingling at all, and I have been able to get off the (mild) medications that I was taking.
- I have read more novels (and even non-fiction) than any year in memory.
- Interesting new ideas that I have written about, talked about, and thought about.
- I have been lucky enough to work throughout the year
- More like that…but you get the point.
The stocking has already been filled through the year, and this Little Christmas season will be warm in the midst of loneliness by the stocking of my life that has been abundantly stuffed.
Be safe, be strong.