Post date: Dec 25, 2020 5:4:31 AM
it's the night before christmas and there's a gale coming through.
the rain is melting away the lingering snow from a storm, days ago, erasing all hopes for a so-called white christmas.
that's 2020 for you.
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i'm writing this as my wife is sleeping, just the two of us, this holiday. in any other year [1] someone would visit or we'd pay a visit to a relative, as would other relatives, in some merry chaos of food and drink and play that are holidays.
i'm writing this, despite being tired. it's going to take more than a good night's sleep or two to dispel this tiredness. it's a tiredness that i feel in my bones and it will be hard to shake out when it's that deep inside.
we're trying to stay cheerful, the two of us.
we've been playing holiday music, off and on, getting into the holiday spirit.
the tree's been standing there for more than a week now, fully decorated and lit up at night with electric lights.
i even looked up a recipe for wassail.
we're trying; we're just trying.
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those opening lines in "a charlie brown christmas" are sticking to me, right now. it's a sense of malaise for when you're supposed to be cheerful but it's not coming through naturally:
"i think there must be something wrong with me ... Christmas is coming, but i'm not happy. i don't feel the way i'm supposed to feel.
i just don't understand Christmas, i guess. i'm getting presents and i'm sending Christmas cards and decorating all the trees and all that, but i'm still not happy. i always end up feeling depressed."
just as there is a freedom of the press and a freedom to assembly, there should be a freedom to be unhappy and to know that things aren't quite right, and to hope for something better ... that perhaps it's not clear what *exactly* would be better, but that there could be something.
after all, what is the cause of anger, really?
according to Seneca, hope is the ultimate cause of anger. if we didn't have hope, then we wouldn't be angry at how something did not turn out the way we hoped.
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i feel like i've lost, in 2020;
if this were a game, then i lost.
of course, many have lost far, far worse. there are now many dead and due to mismanagement, many more will die from the pandemic.
still, i'll call it a year lost, a lost year. i'll cut my losses, including this one;
at the risk of anger brewing in the future, i'll keep hoping ...
... hoping that things are going to be all right.
it will take much activity and action on our part, even as mere citizens with no real pomp or power, for things to become all right again.
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[1] yes, i keep prefacing comments with that. i think we're all doing that. we're all sick and tired of COVID-19 and the effects it has caused us, for some very dire; i ran into a neighbor today who was delivering presents for a family where the parents haven't been employed for six months.