I had such great plans for the end of the year.
I love the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day anyway, and this year it was perfectly situated between two Sundays. Sundays are already unique markers of time. Lines in the sand that delineate between last week and next week. I’m always torn if I want my calendar weeks to start on Sundays or Mondays. Sundays are such liminal days — both endings and beginnings. So I was especially tickled by this magical limbo week sandwiched between two holidays, the latter of which is the ultimate line in the sand, the finish line, the starting line — New Year’s Day.
On Christmas day I finished reading Daniel Pink’s book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, and of course he mentions the power of the great beginning that is NYD. But Pink also gave time to the surge of energy at the conclusion of things. I made great plans to use this final week of 2022 to identify and complete what was both unfinished and needful, while honoring the quiet and dark and peace that comes after the winter solstice and Christmas. It would be a week of preparation and getting ready for new and exciting things.
And then I got Covid on Thursday, Dec 29th. I recognized the aches that were coming on from past vaccinations and boosters, so I started cramming. But I had paid, time-sensitive work that needed to get done first. I prayed that I could get that finished and have something left for myself before I was truly ill. I completed the work, but there was nothing left for me. The year ended and a new one began while I was in bed. My line in the sand had washed away.
Emotion regulation is a real bitch when you’re sick. Our emotions are embodied — we feel our feelings. So it’s hard to say how much of feeling a bit discombobulated and adrift over my best laid plans going “aft a-gley” was because I missed my magic window, or because I was literally drugged up to my eyeballs. But eventually I was able to complete my main goal in preparation for the new year — make this website.
The great thing about sand — you can draw a new line. And the great thing about Sundays — a new one comes every week. My own church, which sets apart first Sundays as a unique time for fasting, declared that this Sunday, Jan 8th, would be our Fast Sunday.
So I’m redrawing the starting line. Watch this space — things are about to take off! 🚀