I hate this time of the year

Christmas is over, and soon it'll be time to take down the Christmas lights and everything will become dark and dreary and there'll be nothing to look forward to. I know this is not a healthy way to look at things, but nonetheless it's how I feel.
I feel this way every year at this time.
November and December are the only two months of the year that I actually like. It's a time for candlelight, Christmas lights and anticipation.
After Christmas comes emptiness. This is especially true this year where I, despite my attempts, still feel as though Christmas came and went fairly unnoticed.
This is also a time for questioning where my life is going.
As always I make my same resolutions, which is to make this year count, to achieve my goals.
This year's goal is to write that book that I started last January but still have yet to finish. I have to finish it, since writing is the only thing standing between me and being a total loser.
Writing used to be only thing that I was good at. I use the word "used to", since I'm not sure if I'm still good at it. I don't even know what language to write in anymore. English or Swedish. My basic instincts tell me to write in Swedish but somewhere along the way the English language took charge of my verbal skills. Now I linger in some sort of language border land.
Regardless, the goal for this year is to finish that book, even if it kills me. It may very well turn out to be crap but at least I need to finish it.
I hate this time of year, because it's the end of Christmas, and a new time line is about it begin.
First there is January, which is ok, because it's still darkness and candlelight. Then there is February, which is saved by Valentine's Day.
However, then comes March, which royally sucks. I hate March, always has. It's like a cross between winter and spring and it's filled with grey days where you feel like you're going slowly mad. It's like you're a bear and you're waking from months of slumber in the darkness and you're faced with the real world.
Then comes April which isn't much better.
March and April are terrible months for me. I'm unstable and prone to depression and anxiety during these months. I much rather prefer constant darkness and hibernation to these months.
While November and December are by far the best months of the year, March and April are the worst, apart from September of course.
So you see, the best months are behind me while the worst months are to come.
The only thing keeping me going now are the promises to myself to make 2011 the most successful so far. I make this same promise every year. I suspect I do this to keep myself going in these troubled times.

Twilight Zone

I think I realized what may be a partial reason for why I've been feeling like I'm living in the twilight zone. It's probably because I've been working extra doing data entry and I work until fairly late in the evening, especially if there is overtime, which there often is this time of the year.
This job is incredibly repetitive. The same tasks, the same people, the same sounds and smells. This time of the year, it starts to get dark around 2:00pm, so most of the time you work with darkness pressing up against the windows, which only makes it all feel even weirder. However, it's weird in a kind of interesting way. I don't mean that the job is interesting, it's not, but after you've sat in front of that computer long enough with no daylight coming in through the windows you start to feel rather loopy. This is especially true after the day crew has gone home for the day and it's just us evening people left.
Once I was working quite a lot at this place, because it was December and I didn't have any translation work or any courses to teach. It was so repitetive that it started to become weird. When we had our dinner, the same postal truck would drive up to the front entrance at the exact same time, and the driver would do a donut in the exact same spot every day. That's only one example of how things would be almost exactly the same day after day. Finally I started to break out into hysterical laughter at things that weren't really that funny. When I get really bored or restless, or even anxious, I start to laugh hysterically. That's my thing. Always has been.
As boring as it is when things are always the same, there's also something amusing about it. It's so repetetive that it borders on bizarre, and I like bizarre. Bizarre inspires me. I become a mixture of hysteria, contemplation, amusement and sadness. All in all, not a bad combination.
I could never survive it without my trusty audio books though. I have been listening to Agatha Christie and Catcher in the Rye. Quite an odd combination. I start off with Agatha Christie and then switch over to Catcher in the Rye. Hercule Poirot and Holden Caulfield meet in my head.

Another reason that it might feel like the twilight zone is that it's very cold outside, -30, and it is almost impossible to be out there. One has to rush very quickly to and from the car. Forget taking a walk, since it hurts too much.
Add to this the fact that it's dark most of the time. Plus we're all busy either working or preparing for Christmas, or both. We're like bears that have temporarily awoken from their winter slumber but who don't emerge from their den but simply stay in there in a half asleep, half awake state.

This has got to be one of the oddest Christmases for me

I feel rather like I'm in the Twilight Zone.
I've been working quite a lot while trying to recapture the spirit of Christmas past. In other words, I've been trying to get this Christmas to feel like it did when I was younger. I know that technically it isn't really Christmas yet, but I've always found the week prior to Christmas Eve to be the best. When Christmas is really here it's almost over. There are a couple of precious days and then it's finished.
The anticipation is much better than the actual day itself.
I have tried to recreate my specific rituals. I have even managed to borrowed a VCR so that I can watch some of my old tapes that I used to watch at Christmas, such as my collection of Christmas episodes of sitcoms. I am enjoying this a lot.
After I got home tonight, I watched "Foul Play", because it's tradition for me to watch that movie a few days before Christmas.
I asked my dad to bring this little Christmas house out from its dark resting place where it's been living for the past 15 years. It's a small house made of wood, painted red, with white cotton on its roof and around it, to make it look like snow. It was made by someone in our family generations ago. You place a lightbulb inside of it, so that it lights up. It has two small rooms.
I was able to put it up this evening, and it's so neat. I had forgotten it since it was so long since I had it up.
So while I'm trying to recreate Christmas past, I am feeling so oddly disconnected, for no particular reason. Almost as though I'm in this vacuum. Although it's not an unpleasant vacuum by any means, it's still odd. Medication induced?
Some moments I am curled up on the couch like a content cat, purring away and enjoying every moment of this season. The next I am oddly morose and self-deprecating. It's bizarre. I suppose it's the season. Christmas brings with it too many expectations. Illusions of the perfect holiday. Life isn't really like what we imagine it will be. There is the discord between family members, my parents arguing, my mother throwing temper tantrums, something which is also a Christmas tradition in our family, and my stubborn, secret wish for a big, family Christmas, which I know is impossible, and a thing of the past. I wish I could get that thought out off my head. I do appreciate what I have though. A lot of people have no one to spend the holidays with. They're completely alone.
Tomorrow is the last day of work. The 23rd will be devoted to doing the last Christmas shopping and baking, and naturally, watching Beatrix Potter at 3:00pm. Another feature of Christmas past.
All in all, this is definitely the best time of the year.

I should remember not to judge people too quickly

I make snap judgements about people too often. I was reminded of that last night. I was working extra at this data entry place. I tend not to rub elbows with the people who work there, simply because it's not my style to socialize much. I'm pretty much a recluse here in this town. I wasn't in Vancouver, but I am here. For some reason I find people here rather hard to talk to. We don't have much in common.
Anyway, when I work side by side with the same people a lot without really talking to them, apart from saying hi and goodbye, I start to pigeonhole them. I'm all for relying on my first instincts about people, since I think that they do tend to be correct most of the time. However sometimes I make unfair judgements of people based on what they look like or how they dress. I'm sure a lot of us are guilty of that from time to time.
Anyway, last night I realized that I have most likely misjudged this one guy who also works extra at this place. He is full of tattoos and dressed rather shabbily and has a mean looking face. Yet he is one of the few people who work there who actually always says hello. It's not the friendliest place in the world. Despite his rather obnoxious appearance, he actually seems to be a very nice, caring person.
This is my point. I made a snap judgement and sat there and felt irritated by him for so long, like I do with a lot of people I don't know, and all along he was a nice person. I must admit that the main reason I've had a change of heart about him is that I was eavesdropping on his phone conversation. Well, it was pretty hard not to hear what he was saying since he was sitting next to me and wasn't shy about what he was saying. It was rather personal. The details aren't important, the point is the way he acted on the phone. Class act. Caring.
So, I should make it a point not to be so hasty in my judgement, and not to be so pissed off and irritable when it comes to other people.

The tree is up!

And it beautiful. It's smaller this year and even though it's fake, it's almost nicer than the real trees we've had previous years. It's just the right size.
We went with silver, gold and a little splash of red in there.
Last night while I was working, my friend called me. This friend has been sick for a while and is particularly pain-ridden at the moment. As a result she hasn't been able to bake anything for Christmas. So I asked her what she missed the most, and decided to make it for her that very same night when I got home.
However, in the grocery store on the way home I suddenly started feeling really ill. I felt as though I was going to throw up or faint, or both. It was awful to walk between the shelves in a panic trying to pick up everything I needed and make a quick exit. I can't think of anything more embarrassing than hurling chunks in a grocery store. Well, I'm sure there are things that would be more embarrassing but throwing up would be up the on the scale of awkward moments.
Anyway we got out off there and drove home and the minute I got in the door I ran to the washroom and threw up. We're talking cascade vomit here.
For the rest of the night I laid on my bed, trying not to move, since when I did I felt sick again.
This morning I was fine though and was able to bake for my friend and her family.
I made saffron buns, chocolate cookies and gooey chocolate cupcakes. It felt good to be able to deliver it at her doorstep.
It's been a pretty good day all in all. Decorating the tree is always great. Or rather, afterwards is awesome, when the tree is finished and all sparkly and special and you get to lay on the couch and take it in.
An added plus was that we were able to borrow a VCR for the holidays, and I get to watch my beloved old Christmas episodes of T.V shows such as that horrible, old soap Santa Barbara. It's corny but I love their Christmas episodes from the 80's. It may be plastic but there is a certain odd sincerity there, maybe even a grain of wisdom, if that is at all possible for soaps. I don't really know if that's really true or not and I don't really care. The point is that they put me in the Christmas spirit and it's tradition.

Grandparents

My paternal grandparents are unfortunately deceased. My grandmother passed away in 2006. Christmas hasn't been the same without them. For me, Christmas is almost synonomous with them. For some reason, I miss them very much this year. I've been thinking about them a lot lately.

They lived around an hour outside of town, and rarely came to town to visit us. It was mostly us visiting them.
So you knew that when they did come to our place, it was a special occasion. It was almost something holy. Hearing their voices in our place was really something.
I had this annual Christmas Eve tradition growing up, I would take a long bath with either scented oils from the body shop or some funny bubble bath. I clearly remember this bottle of bubble bath in the shape of Fozzie Bear from the Muppet Show.
There'd be incredible excitement in the air, because it was Christmas Eve, the best day of the whole year.
I'd be in the bath, trying to casually read a book or comics, in an attempt to contain the feverish butterflies in my stomach.
All of a sudden, the front door opens and I could hear those familiar voices. They never used the door bell because that was simply not done in the village where they lived and certainly not when you were visiting family members.
Now that the grandparents had arrived it became impossible to stay in that bath one more minute. Although I would force myself to stay in the tub for just a few more minutes anyway, just so that I wouldn't appear too anxious.
Calmer, more restrained kids were the ones to receive more approval in our family.
I definitely didn't belong to this category.

My grandfather would be sitting on a chair next to the window in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette. This was before smoking inside and around children became a big no-no.
He would always talk about what traffic had been like on the roads.
My grandmother was more laid-back. She would sit at the table. Her short hair was curly, either from her last perm or from hair curlers.

Then we had coffee and cakes and cookies. Sometimes my father's aunt and her family would join us, in which case everything was even more thrilling. I loved it when we were all together. It meant it was a special occasion indeed. Just having the grandparents there was a big deal.

My grandpa would always tease me in the same way every Christmas Eve. At least three times he would ask me, in this very teasing voice, if I was nervous and excited about the Christmas gifts. He'd say my face was white with excitement. Which it most likely was, but of course I'd vehemently deny it and get angry about the mere suggestion of it. As I got a little older I developed a new strategy of answering calmly and casually instead of getting mad.

Then as I got older, he continued to tease me in the same way. It wasn't until I was in my mid-twenties that he stopped. Soon after he that he passed away. At the time, when I was a kid, his joking would annoy me, since I always tried so hard to appear nonchalant and cool about the presents. Now I miss it, oddly enough. I simply miss their presence.

It's just not the same without them. It's like something is still missing after all these years. This year I'm being very nostalgic.

Sometimes the numbness wear off

And I'm reminded that I really do feel like crap most of them time.

I should be more appreciative. I have do have it pretty good compared to a lot of other people.

So then why is it that I can't shake this?

I was feeling fine all day, even perky almost. Now suddenly I did a 180. Maybe it's simple fatigue. I've been really tired lately, all the time. I sleep around 8-9 hours a night but yet I'm still always tired. It's not that I sleep too much. It's a different kind of tired. Sometimes I get so tired of myself.

I think I best be off to bed.

On a mission to find the Christmas spirit

I'm on a quest to locate that Christmas spirit that seems to have gone missing in the last few years. I need to start creating new holiday traditions instead of relying on old ones. In order to help me along the way, there are a few things that are essential and that I simply cannot relinquish.

Number 1 tool in quest for Christmas spirit: Candles- And lots of them. There will be candles everywhere in this apartment. A room can look crappy, messy or bare, but when you light a few candles in it, it makes all the difference in the world.

Number 2 tool in quest for Christmas spirit: Baking - The joint will smell like a truck transporting cinnamon just collided with a vanilla truck, and the cargo busted open and mixed in the wind. An added plus will be bringing some to a friend's house on Christmas Eve. Yes, how homespun and nice is that!

Number 3 tool in quest for Christmas spirit: The Christmas tree - Which has yet to be purchased. This year we're going for an artificial tree. We've had real trees the previous years we've lived here but every single year it just makes me so sad I can't stand it. To chop down a tree, bring it into our house, decorate it and then suddenly throw it out so that it can lay there abandoned and await a slow death. No thanks! However, a Christmas tree is essential. No Christmas without it. While I decorate it I plan to have Christmas music playing in the background, which brings me to number 4...

Number 4 tool in quest for Christmas spirit: Christmas music - Particularly "Oh Holy Night", "Silent Night" and "The Christmas Song", the Nat King Cole version.

Number 5 tool in quest for Christmas spirit: The movie "Foul Play" and "The Tales of Beatrix Potter". I know that the former sounds like an odd choice of Christmas movie, but it's actually an ancient tradition of mine. Coincidentally, "Foul Play" was shown on T.V around December 21st a few years in a row when I was a kid. I watched it with the freshly decorated Christmas tree in the same room and the smell of my mom's hyacinths, which she always put out in the living room for Christmas. Now, this movie has become synonymous with childhood Christmases, and I make a point to watch it around December 21st, with hyacinths on the coffee table. As for "The Tales of Beatrix Potter", this ballet was on T.V every December 23rd when I grew up, and I always used to watch it. It would be on around 3:00pm, and it would be getting very dark outside. The coffee table would be filled wit nuts and clementies, and wonderfully smelling hyacinths of course. While my parents were either out Christmas shopping or my was cooking, I would be lost in the fantasy world of Beatrix Potter, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the presents that had by now appeared underneath the tree.

Number 6 tool in quest for Christmas spirit: Hyacinths!

More may be added as we get closer to Christmas, and I get more in touch with my Christmas muse. I think a definite theme here is childhood. Never do we enjoy Christmas the way we do when we're kids. It'll never be the same again but one can at least try and recapture some of it.

Showing legs for charity

When I was at one of the two teenie weenie malls here today, I saw these heavily made-up girls wearing nylon stockings and red sweaters, asking for donations to some charity. Actually whether or not they were asking for donations is debatable, since they seemed more engrossed in gossip than charity. No doubt for them this was more about dressing sexy and getting a lot attention than collecting money for charity. I can't blame them. In this town one has to grab whatever opportunity comes along.
Is it me, or does it seem inappropriate to dress up some girls like skanks and let them parade around the mall? Why do they have to dress like skanks? Will people donate more then? If that's the case, there's something terribly wrong here. Do people need to some and makeup before they give money to charity? Is that how evolved our society is?
I suppose so. Screw women's lib, right?

P.S. I hate this town sometimes. I truly do. I wish I could pack up my parents and my belongings and leave. I have a love/hate relationship with this place. I will always have my roots here and I love its nature and clean air but if it wasn't for my folks living here I would leave and not come back.

Is Christmas almost here again?

It's not as though it's snuck up on me. I knew it was coming. I was looking forward to it, as I always do. But now that it's actually almost here I don't feel it, as always. I feel even less this year. I suppose that's because as usual these days we don't have any plans for Christmas. It'll be the four of us again, well five counting Kelly. It all centers around Kelly since she's the closest thing to a child we have. We watch as she opens her presents, with a little assistence. I put a big red bow around her neck on Christmas Eve, so she can look all nice and christmassy. When we eat she gets a special Christmas plate too.
It's a bit sad, how things have changed over the years. Christmas should be different from all the other days of the year. It should be a big deal. It should be boisterous, yet peaceful. Small and intimate is nice, but not all the time. Sometimes you want big, loud family events.
I know circumstances have changed for our family. It's just the four of us now, and I've accepted that because that's how it is. Life is full changes. It can't all stay the same forever. It changes for us all of us.
This time of year it feels a bit empty though.
I've been watching "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation", because it's a December tradition for me, and also because the movie centers around a big family Christmas, crazy though those family members may be.
I'm living vicariously through movies and T.V shows this Christmas. At least that's the plan.
When you think about it, it's a bit odd that we don't celebrate this event with our friends. I did one year. The one year I spent Christmas in Vancouver, Nick and I had some friends over. It was different from what I was used to, but nice. Peaceful. Peaceful is nice.
Often, we're closer to our friends than we are to our relatives, yet when it comes to the big holidays we spend them with our relatives.
We don't anymore. Hence the small gathering.
Anyway, Christmas isn't about large gatherings is it. Christmas is going to come whether or not you have a gathering of 20, or a gathering of 1. When I was a kid, there was nothing worse in my mind than spending Christmas Eve alone. I never felt so much pity as I did for those that spent Christmas on their own. I still think it's quite sad, even though some people actually choose to be alone.
Anyway, I will try to get more into it. I plan to bake and make the place smell wonderful and look really cozy the day before Christmas Eve.

Invisible?

Do you ever have times when you feel like you're the invisible woman/man? When you feel like you're talking to yourself? Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.

A lurking cold

It started with a somewhat scratchy feeling in my throat on Thursday evening, together with dry lips and some general discomfort. Then I couldn't sleep properly that night and felt very tired and a bit achy on Friday morning, so I called in sick.
Now it's been 24 hours and I'm still waiting for whatever this is to actually break out. I still feel like one does in that awful before-stage when you just realize that you're coming down with a cold and all you feel is a tickle in your throat and a some body aches. That's the worst. I'd much rather have the actual cold than linger in the before-stage, not sure whether it's a cold or my imagination. Having a cold is not that bad. In fact I've been hoping that I'd get one. Being sick in December is really cozy. You get to curl up on your bed/couch with the Christmas lights in the window and lay there and comfortably drift in and out of sleep as the sun sets behind snow-covered tree tops. And, this one has nothign to do with Christmas, you get to medicate yourself with painkillers that make you feel comfortably drowsy and at ease. There's something about waking up from a nap and realizing you have fever-induced chills, and getting up with a blanket wrapped about your shoulders and making yourself a big cup of tea with honey and downing some extra strength tylenon, then going back to bed with about 3 blankets to watch some T.V, and then within 15 minutes start to feel warm and secure, as if those pesky chills were never there. That transition between chills and warm and secure is very enjoyable. That warm feeling that suddenly comes creeping and starts to work its way through your body.
There are definite perks about having a cold. As long as it doesn't get too unpleasant, it's quiet nice. I think we all need it at least a couple of times a year. Two times a year to retreat from the world and the pressures and enter this snug, secure little world of blankets, honey, cough drops and old T.V shows. At the end of these bouts I usually feel so relaxed and at at ease. A bit reluctant and scared, yet ready to enter the real world again.
Anyway, at this time I feel like I'm still in the before-stage. That's how it's been lately whenever I get a cold, like it doesn't really break out. It's like a tickle in my throat and some fatigue and that's it. No fever. I wish it would just break out and be done with it. Am I sick or not?