Postpartum Humbug

And so begins the week of dread. The last seven days of the year. The last week of the year is one that I really hate. Well, maybe hate is too strong a word. I think I dislike it mightily. When I was a kid, this week signaled the end of the Christmas season. The wrapping paper is gone, the Christmas songs stored away until next year and only one more party to attend. New Year's is just a formality, just like the fourth quarter of a Super Bowl blowout. You know how it's going to end. I'd be sad that the smiling faces and holiday cheer would drain away and be gone by the time the ball dropped on Times Square.
And I was usually right.
I miss the days when Christmas was more innocent. When there was still a Santa and reindeer and elves cramming that last Light Bright into his bag.
I miss the days when there was still magic.
This year was just empty of that spirit. I had no taste for holiday parties or Christmas cheer. I was certainly not into shopping either. I knew what my kids wanted for Christmas and that was all I was really interested in getting. Nothing else. I didn't want to waste ten or twelve hours shopping for people that wouldn't really care if I got them a gift (I wanted to get a couple of them a lump of coal this year but what with the price of heating fuels going up this winter I couldn't afford it...)
This year I think I may have quite possibly had my most lackluster Christmas ever.
The shine was gone.
I'm not complaining about gifts or anything. Just the overall spirit of the season.
It wasn't there.
It was missing.
I wonder if the media blitz concerning the controversy of Christmas and Nativity scenes and holiday hoopla and sales figures and the deluge of sales and specials and toys, toys, toys and oh the noise, noise!!!
I wonder if any of that had something to do with how I feel?
My heart is down a size and a half.
(And this time, I'll keep it off!)
This week was always the letdown after Christmas. New Year's is right up the block and quickly approaching and then (at least as kid growing in Brooklyn) winter's icy grip and nothing to break the dreary gray skies until spring. Back then the Yankees sucked bigtime so I didn't really look forward to baseball season like I have the last ten years or so.
Remember Mike Pagliarulo?
They would play this really cool italian tune whenever he came up to bat.
He used to play third base for the Yanks. He always had that cool black schmutz under his eyes and this cat like crouch waiting for the hot shot down the line, ready to spear it and loop the ball over to Mattingly in that crazy softball side arm toss that would have had my coach screaming at me for throwing like that.
"But coach, Pags does it and he plays for the Yankees!"
""Well, when you are playing for the Yankees you can do it too."
Ok. My random childhood baseball reverie is over now.
But spring is still along ways off. The air is still cool, though admittedly the Florida is much milder during the winter than Brooklyn but the feeling is still the same. Another year in my life has passed and I wonder how much of it I have wasted.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not going through some mid life crisis thing.
At least I dont think so.
I haven't bought a sports car yet so I think I'm still ok.
(But I was thinking about getting one...)
I wonder where the energy of my youth has gone and why I don't feel a need to push boundaries, to explore my life. I'm soft in the middle these days but I am in fairly decent shape. I just might have a lot of life left to live. So where is the passion.
So what is my mission?
Don't panic.
I am not going to make one of those rediculous New Year's resolutions. Why do people bother making those? They pretend that they have a new lease on life when in actuality, most of them are starting yet another year in the routine.
Hmm. Is that it? Am I Mister Grumpypants because I am starting another year in the routine?
I dont want to make some asinine prediction of all the things I want to do this year like lose weight, buy a new car, pay off that credit card / student loan / gambling debt (insert your particular debt here).
You know what I want?
Something extraordinary.
I want to take deep breaths and enjoy the fact that they are there to be taken. I want to wake up in the morning glad that I have done so. I want to live and feel like I am alive instead of merely existing from day to day.
How's that for a Grandiose New Year's resolution?
I want to live.
I want the passion of the life.
Is that so wrong?
Have you ever been so excited about something that you can actually hear your heartbeat in your ears? That you can feel the blood coursing through your veins. You can feel the expanse of your lungs as you breathe in deeply. Colors are brighter and the feel of the air on your skin is electric.
That is life.
That is living.
That's what I want this year.
Life.
Maybe I will start to exercise. Perhaps I will get serious about my writing instead of treating it like a hobby. Maybe, just maybe, I'll start shooting that short film I keep telling myself I need to get done. Maybe I will finally join the Mile High Club.
Maybe.
But I think that if I can wake up and feel like smiling it would be a great start.
So here's hoping that your new year is infinitely better than the last. Here's hoping that you wake up glad to be alive. Here's hoping that you savor the breath you have been given and the sunrise saved for you. Here's hoping that you have passion in your life. Here is hoping that in the next year you have a life well lived.
Make sure we meet again next year and see how it goes.