Right this moment...

December 30, 2011

Right this moment...

Every year, in the lull that follows the craziness of Christmas, I have to remind myself It's all over... you can relax, Shannon. The holiday has come and gone. Don't worry about those gifts I still have to mail -- they'll make it eventually. Don't worry that my Christmas tree is still up even though lots of over-achievers on Facebook are making me feel worse because they've already taken down their tree and lights and have changed the station on Pandora and cleaned out all the Christmasy scents from their wickless candle warmers. And for some reason, sometimes that pre-Christmas anxiety lingers with me. I have a hard time sitting idle, always feeling like I should be doing something, anything other than what I'm doing right now because whatever I'm doing right now is a giant waste of time, right? Perhaps it's the excessive amounts of caffeine I've been consuming piping in, too.

And right now, that anxiety is clinging to me tighter than all those holiday snacks I shouldn't have eaten. We are making another major move soon, going back to old friends, leaving behind new ones, and reuniting with family. Packing gives me even more anxiety. I feel the desperate need to purge, to get rid of anything at all that seems redundant and wasteful... Hell, sometimes I'm half-tempted to just walk away from all of it and start completely over (except for my vintage dresses... and my stone bakeware... and my sewing machine... and our original nine-foot church pew...).

But then I found a box of Bentley's Reserve Praline Pecan popcorn in the cabinet that my Auntie Barb sent... and I put the boy down for a nap... and I chose to leave the house quiet save for a ticking clock above the fridge. And slowly, as I sat down with a glass of water, the popcorn and the quiet (save for small popcorn crunches...Mmmmmm...), I started to type and I started to feel better. So here is the post-Christmas "chaos" that really isn't that loud and really isn't that bad...