I’ve never been a New Years fan. It just seems like the perfect set up for disappointment. The media always makes it out to be a life-changing experience, when it’s really just the transition from December to January. (At least that’s what I try to tell myself.) Deep down, I know it’s the threshold of another year filled with mysterious highs and lows that are waiting to be discovered.
Because of a multitude of things going on in my life – aging parents, aging in-laws, our country’s dismal political scene to name a few — I threw myself into the holidays. I refused to listen to anything but Christmas music in my minivan, and I baked more than Entenmann’s. I wrapped presents early, and I tried to wrap them nicely, meaning I purchased sticky bows. I played Christmas carols on the piano and gazed at twinkling lights every chance I got. I soaked in every second of the holiday season’s blissful existence. Then Christmas was over.
I tried to convince myself that we were still holly and jolly during the week between Christmas and New Years, but deep down, I knew the magic was drawing to an end. Soon I began to see trees beside recycling bins and marked down candy canes at the grocery store. Christmas was leaving, and there was nothing I could do to prevent its exit.
On top of the forthcoming joy exodus, it rained and rained and rained. My demeanor had no choice but to spiral into a pit of depression and anxiety. The morning I dropped my children off at school after the holiday break, I felt as if I were walking down a foggy street in a film noir movie — permanently. There was really nowhere to go but down. Then I got a text.
“She’s there to clean,” it read. During all of the excitement of Christmas, I forgot that our cleaning lady comes the first Thursday of the month. I rushed home to let her in and quickly begin dismantling the holiday messiness and clutter of our home so she could dust. It was like ripping a huge BAND-AID off of the holidays, quick and painful but also soothing.
Suddenly I began to feel like me, and I started to realize that the world was not in fact ending. Yes, the Christmas music is gone and the lights are back in the storage closet, but now I (hopefully) have 365 days to fill with a rainbow of emotions and activities. I have a new year to paint a new picture. That one text was the equivalent to Olympia Dukakis slapping Cher in the face in Moonstruck. “Snap out of it,” Olympia said. And just like that, I did.