hopeful Christmas blues

This year, Christmas came and went like a pit-stop for gas on a road trip.  Multiple times, I tried to fall into the spirit of things, but it felt as though my mind would retract each time I attempted to hone in on the season.  I was antsy and busy thinking of obligations and future meetings that must be had, worrying that my Etsy orders would make it in time for Christmas, and anticipating all that would resume again come Monday, while presenting Christmas to my family the best way I knew how, with cookie plates, Christmas Eve traditions, family time, and well, let's be honest, too many presents.  Too many, that it left me feeling like I had totally botched my attempt at balancing Santa and the true meaning of Christmas.  It was such a botch that I wonder if Santa will be landing his sleigh on our roof next year, or if he'll be accepting Christmas lists at all.  It sounds so dreadful, I know.

Truth be told, I've been feeling a bit blue since, and my mind is still reeling like a movie on repeat. I can't quite pin-point the offness that resides within, or how it managed to nestle itself in for more than a night's stay.  Sometimes during the day, like late yesterday afternoon on the way home from the grocery store, the glisten of lights on the houses reminded me of the season and the magic it usually brings.  When I returned home, I made it a point to turn the lights back on for these final days of the season and the year, and it helped.

Luckily, with this offness, I haven't felt hopeless, nor has it been pouring over the rest of the family.  Over the last few days, I've been struck with creative ideas that excite me plenty, and there is still promise in my work.  I've been attempting to write through it, to put words to the feelings so as to pull them back and place them in their blue box, for a different rainy day, but it hasn't yet been completely sorted.  It's as though my heart is still trying to recover the inspiration, the happiness, the struggle and the mystery of it all to be able to place it in the appropriate box--because it is all there, and is worth every ounce of feeling. 

Maybe I'm learning more than I realize, because as much as I try and divert from such times, I cling to them the same--expecting a rhyme or reason, the opportunity for growth, and ultimately a stronger moving forward.  Perfect segue into 2011, no?  Maybe it is because I am a planner, or that I'm a creative spirit struggling in a type-A body, that my heart resists the initial thought of such a transitional occurrence.  But when it must, it happens to me, and I sit there waiting for it to pass, for the transition to occur, and to find myself on the other side.  The hopeful thing about transition is that in hindsight, it usually always makes sense.

Today, I welcome the blues, the agitation that is stirring in my heart and ultimately the transition with open arms.  Doing so, has never hindered me before.

So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever known, if a restiveness, like light and cloud shadow passes over your hands and over all that you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)

NOTE TO SELF: Now would be a good time to re-read "Letters to a Young Poet."