Tuesday, December 27, 2011

I am adrift.

Merry Christmas!

Even though I'm back at work today, it's still Christmas, and will be until Epiphany on January 6. The lights and decorations and carols get to stay for nine more days. Yay!

Anyway, I did have a very nice Christmas Eve and first day of Christmas. Spent time with the DDH and his family; got a vacuum cleaner and some other stuff. People seemed to like the gifts I got them. Talked on the phone with mi familia. The sister texted that she wished I were there (also that they were all sitting around tipsily discussing me vomiting). Still have to mail packages back to the 'burque and to a friend in Ghana. But still. Good.

I think I have pinpointed why (or one reason, anyway) Advent didn't feel very Christmassy this year. Maybe this is a completely obvious statement, but it was the first year since I was three that neither I nor my husband were in school.

I mean, yes, I graduated from college almost four years ago now, but the DDH has still been in law school all this time. So even though I wasn't in school, the rhythm of fall semester/holidays/spring semester/summer break still affected my life. He still got crazy during finals and had extra free time during the breaks, and that changed my routines, too.

But this year...it was just work. For both of us. Working away right up until Friday, then a three-day weekend, and now back at work (well, he's off today, too, but he'll go back tomorrow).

I've never lived in Ordinary Time before. The seasons of elementary, middle, and high school, then college, then husband-in-law school are all special times with their own special traditions and routines, like holiday times in the church year. But this after-we're-done-with-school, before-we-have-school-aged-children time is weird. Anchorless. Featureless. The same workday after workday, week after week, month after month.

Maybe this is why I've been feeling restless lately, like I'm drifting aimlessly. I'm not working toward those short-term goals anymore. You know? Pass this test, pass this class, enjoy this break, now the next class with its own tests and projects and essays, get to this graduation and then that degree, and fill in the everyday-life stuff around those concrete little goals.

Now the everyday-life stuff is all I've got. And it's all so cyclical, so repetitive, with no sense of accomplishment and no sense of movement toward anything. All my days slip away and I've done nothing with them.

That needs to change. I'm just not sure how. What do you do with your life when you don't have anything to do with your life?

Sigh. First world problems, I know.

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