It's that Time again...

Intro: Planning holiday travel (Muppet Christmas Carol-style)

If I am haunted by anything, it’s Time. The fear of wasting it, losing it, running out of it keeps me up at night. It gives me nightmares. It terrifies me. 

Time feels like an enemy that should be an ally, and I am always in a battle against it. A readied stance- one eye on the clock, on the calendar- poised to predict (or more likely- react to) its next move.

But Time is a shapeshifter. 

Sometimes it’s slippery, like a teflon creature slicked with soap and impossible to hang on to. Sometimes it’s sticky, thick like muck, suctioning your boots and pulling you back at every attempt to move through it. Sometimes it stretches and stretches and stretches, like that Stretch Armstrong doll everyone got for Christmas that one year- infinite and impossible.

It moves differently in different places, too. In different contexts. Have you ever noticed that? A minute in an airport is different than a minute on a rollercoaster. A minute waiting for an important call is different than the ‘one more minute’ you get when snoozing your alarm. A minute during a good date is way different than a minute on a bad one.

Maybe it’s my fear of Time that distorts my perception, but I am constantly misjudging it. Miscalculating my own pace in proportion to the speed at which it travels. There is a saying a friend reminds me of often- we overestimate what we can do in a day, but we underestimate what we can do in a year. And I think that’s very true, but I don’t know quite what to do about it. Do 365 days of underachieving really accumulate to a year of accomplishment?

Nothing encapsulates this more than the month of December. Talk about the heebie jeebies. You are, at once, looking back at the year- what you did (or didn’t) do- and looking ahead at the last remaining month and what you still need to get done. Ideally, all of it. Every single outstanding goal that you were somehow unable to meet in the months prior, but still feels possible- if you really focus- to accomplish in the next few weeks.

Because you’re also looking ahead to next year and thinking about how it will be different, how you will be different, and how this time, next year, you won’t be in the same place. How that starts right here, right now.

All the while, we’re in a season that nature designed for slowing down, for hibernating. If the phone is ringing off the hook, it should be calls to be still, to reflect, to rest. Our stockings should be full, not our inboxes.

One season at odds with another, sitting next to each other on the sofa like a couple of relatives that don’t get along, but have to tolerate each other.

And, speaking of incompatible relatives- it is also the holidays. A cheerful call to celebrate. To take time off. To gather with friends and family. But also to hustle and bustle for them- shopping and shipping and tracking and cut off dates and coordinating logistics while balancing a calendar full of plans.

It is the most wonderful time of year, yes. But also the most stressful. It’s hard to read through the mixed messaging, to decipher what you need when all of your wants are colliding and conflicting.

I’m not entirely sure why, but it hasn’t felt like Christmas to me this year. I want it to. I’m ready for it. I’ve been craving it for months and I’m doing all the festive things that usually trigger that festive feeling, but it’s just not kicking in. Maybe, like the rest of my clothes, my old santa suit is a little too constricting and it’s making me edgy and uncomfortable. Maybe it’s the question mark of a new chapter of life, one without established traditions or rituals to ease me in, to ground me in the familiar. Maybe it’s the fact that this was still a really weird year and, even though I keep thinking the pandemic was two years ago, we actually began this year still in the thick of it.

Whatever it is, I am determined to make my outsides reflect the season even if my insides don’t yet match the spirit. We got our tree and we decorated it and we’ve been making our way through our list of Christmas movies while drinking mulled wine. I’ve been using all 10 hours of the crackling fireplace scene on youtube.  

To be clear, I’m not in full bah humbug mode. But, maybe like Scrooge, I need some guidance. To help me remember. To help me find whatever it is that I’ve lost.

Unfortunately, despite not sleeping great the last few weeks (see aforementioned deadlines, time crunch, end of year rush), no former co-workers, business partners, or hecklers from my past have shown up to haunt to me in the night- in muppet form or otherwise. 

So, I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands. I’ve done what any overachiever with a candy cane-infused desperation would do…I’ve created my own time travel plans. Following the Muppet Christmas Carol¹ outline, I will be escorting myself (or us, should you choose to come along- and I hope that you will) through Christmases past, present, and future.

…All aboard!

Because of all the busyness and scatteredness and lack of sitting stillness we’ve already talked about, these imagined trips will be broken up and sprinkled throughout the next few weeks and into the new year. A gift for both of us.

For now, I’m wondering- what are your travel plans this year? Are you going anywhere fun or familiar? And, importantly, what will you be watching?

We kicked things off with The Family Man and Spirited. Our remaining list is long, but at the top are: Love Actually, The Holiday, and Home Alone…

What holiday movies are on your annual lineup?

1. Really, this is the framework for all versions of The Christmas Carol (I’m pretty sure), but I only know the muppet version, so, should there be any discrepancies- refer to this source material.