One More Day to Be Sad

Because it's been such a hard and sad year for me in so many ways, I've been looking forward to December 31 with great anticipation. Farewell 2010, and good riddance! On to greet all the wonderful new things the universe has lined up for me in 2011! I've found myself in a countdown mode - only three weeks left to be sad, now only two weeks left to be sad...

But then I decided that I really didn't want to wring every last bit of sadness out of 2010, especially because, after all, this is winter break from my job teaching at CU, and it's supposed to be a time of well-earned relaxation, plus a time to get all the work done that I didn't have time to do during the busy semester. Did I really want to spend the better part of winter break moping? So I decided to give myself just through December 26 to be sad, and then start being happy again on December 27. I'd have a sad Christmas (Christmas Day was my mother's actual birthday, and she was always the heart and soul of our family celebrations), and then on the morning of Sunday, December 26, I'd preach the sermon at church, as I've done for the past two years, with Christopher playing all the music for the service (the regular pastor and organist like to take off the Sunday after Christmas to recover from all their intense Christmas season efforts). It would be a sermon on looking back, and on looking forward, and then I'd start looking forward myself.

But now I'm thinking that maybe I should move up the deadline for starting to be happy again, and give myself just TODAY to wallow in my last hurrah of sadness, and then get up TOMORROW and start being happy again. I have a number of enticing work projects to begin, and all the last satisfying Christmas activities. And even today has a lot of distractions from sadness in it: church this morning, an open house at the parsonage this afternoon, and then caroling at two retirement communities. Still, I can squeeze quite a bit of sadness in.

And then tomorrow, Monday, December 20, I'm going to wake up at 5:00 again, instead of my currently slothful 6:00, and I'm going to listen to some great songs from Hello Dolly: "Put on Your Sunday Clothes, There's Lots of World Out There!", "So long, dearie, I should have said 'So long' so long ago," and "Before the Parade Passes By." And then I think I'm going to spend the rest of my life being happy. It sounds like a plan.