I love Boxing Day - if anything I think it's better than Christmas Day - no pressure, no cooking, just family and left-overs. Where the name comes from I haven't a clue - something about boxing up gifts for the peasants - I could look it up but it's bound to be dull so I wont.
Boxing Day, like electric kettles and proper sausages and irony, doesn't exist in America. It's not even a (bank) holiday. I'm wondering whether when I live there I can claim it as a cultural holiday-right.
This Christmas has been my first apart from Jeremy in ummm 4 years I think, maybe 5. I've managed to cajole him into spending the last 2 Christmases in England - I thought I was onto a winner this year too but he had the cheek to want to spend it with his family rather than mine. He also did his usual trick of never quite categorically saying he wasn't coming ('I don't think I can' rather than 'no'), so right up until Christmas eveevening I was holding out hope for a surprise arrival.
Maybe because I was half expecting him to walk through the door bearing a rocking chair (my Christmas gift-request, yes I know I sound like I'm a grandma already but I really like rocking) at any time, or because I was focusing primarily on the thought of sleeping in a bed for the first time in 6 months (that plan was well and truly scuppered in a joint effort between my Grandma usurping my sister's bed and my sister very selfishly refusing to sleep on the floor and insisting on sharing my bed), I hadn't really given much thought to him not being here this Christmas.
Christmas morning I was distracted by presents and then by food, so it wasn't really until the afternoon (one of those endless afternoons that only seem to happen at Christmas... but maybe that's just the TV/Internet ban enforced by my mother) that I really noticed he wasn't around and The Missing set in.
Missing Jeremy has been something of a constant over the past 6.5 years (with an 18 month gap when doing my masters in Boston). It's become such a habit that I even miss him when we're together, but that's more of an anticipatory missing and is less potent. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, that I'd be able to turn down volume on The Missing, and focus on the fact that soon we'll be together... you might think that but you don't know me very well if you do.
On an average day, missing Jeremy is something like a constant low electrical hum - like a big fridge that's trying to cool itself down, or the sound of Marc's tiscali box recording 'Match of the Day' - it's there, it's a little annoying but it's manageable. But on some days it ups the ante and causes brain interference, and no matter what I do I can't shake it. Phones suddenly become malicious non-ringing meanies, collaborating with my email account and mobile in non-conveyance of Jeremy contact. And me? Well the brain interference means I can't quite concentrate on the matters at hand, so I become reserved and distracted and, well, grumpy.
So that was me yesterday afternoon- distracted and grumpy and resenting all forms of communication-technology. There were some highlights which distracted me from my distraction momentarily- my new red Hunter wellies, walking with Mum and Jess in the cold and the quiet, laughing at Jess when she fell over on the ice, laughing more when she fell over a second time and dragged mum down with her (I didn't try and help, I just took photographs)...
Finally I called Jeremy and it turned out he'd been trying to get in touch all day but our mobiles had conspired against us. And the Missing Mist lifted - yes he was still 3000 miles away but there he was on the end of the phone, missing me right back, and that helped some.
So today I'm back to the electrical-hum sort of missing, buoyed by the knowledge that this is my last Boxing day without him, although it's arguable whether I'll see another Boxing day for a while if I'm going to be stateside next Christmas...but that's a whole other conversation yet to be had...
Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts
Moving on to...
In approximately 912 hours, or 3,283,200 seconds (no I didn't just sit and work that out, my cousin sent me a site which will help me in my Grim Reaper of Time ways) I will be leaving TimeBank. In fact, I'll probably already have left and be sat by a devonshire fire with mince-pies and mulled wine (my staple Christmas diet) as I'm taking TOIL (trans. awesome system where I get time off for hours worked over contracted hours.) for my final day, since no one was going to be in the office anyway and I've no handover to do so I'd have been twiddling my soon-to-be-unemployed thumbs all day long.
I'll admit, I'm looking forward to unemployment. I'll rephrase. I'm looking forward to temporary unemployment. From January until whenever my Employment Authorisation Document comes through I'm going to be living guilt free off my supportive, loving husband (is it ok that my heart misses a beat when I say husband and January in the same sentence? I don't mean misses a beat in a swooning I-Love-Him-So-Much way, I mean in a using all the $%&@! on the keyboard sort of way... which no, mother, if you're reading this, does not mean I don't want to marry him, it's just £$%!&ing terrifying. And no I didn't swear, I said £$%&!). I get to sleep, eat late breakfasts with mugs of coffee and read War and Peace, because if I don't read it when I've nothing else to do, let's face it, I'm never going to read it.
But from the moment that EAD comes in, I'm officially given back rights to independence and supposed to be fully emancipated, futhering my career and not living off my husband (Husband!). Which begs the question, what the $%&@! am I going to do?
Last night I helped run a big event for TimeBank. It was fun - in the lead up to the event I don't think I clock-watched my days once, except to remark on how on earth it went from morning to night in the space of a second. I learnt some things about myself - such as when I'm busy I have more energy and need less sleep and that I like wearing electric blue (thanks for the dress Siany) and that holding a clipboard gives me a sense of power. So maybe I'll become an events planner. Or maybe I'll follow up on a jokey remark where I asked a complete stranger (who is opening a venue in Boston) to hire me and he didn't look horrified by the suggestion.
I could do anything. Anything, that is, that doesn't require formal qualifications (International relations and english lit don't really lend themselves to many vocations).
I'm trying to embrace this possibility for change rather than feel overwhelmed by it. I have time to figure it all out - the US Immigration Services have kindly prohibited me from working for my first 3 months in the states, which gives me some thinking space. I can volunteer. Goodness knows since I've spent the last 2.5 years telling other people to volunteer, it's probably about time I did. I may have to put off reading War and Peace, in favour of determining my life's path, but who was I kidding about that anyway?
What I absolutely will not do is watch re-runs of The Hills / Miami Social / Wives of Orange County (if I say I won't do it enough maybe resolve will translate into reality). I will take control. I will think and weigh and consider. I will not become a sloth. I will find the promised path to career fulfilment. And in the meantime, I might start carrying around a clipboard to make me feel more in control.
I'll admit, I'm looking forward to unemployment. I'll rephrase. I'm looking forward to temporary unemployment. From January until whenever my Employment Authorisation Document comes through I'm going to be living guilt free off my supportive, loving husband (is it ok that my heart misses a beat when I say husband and January in the same sentence? I don't mean misses a beat in a swooning I-Love-Him-So-Much way, I mean in a using all the $%&@! on the keyboard sort of way... which no, mother, if you're reading this, does not mean I don't want to marry him, it's just £$%!&ing terrifying. And no I didn't swear, I said £$%&!). I get to sleep, eat late breakfasts with mugs of coffee and read War and Peace, because if I don't read it when I've nothing else to do, let's face it, I'm never going to read it.
But from the moment that EAD comes in, I'm officially given back rights to independence and supposed to be fully emancipated, futhering my career and not living off my husband (Husband!). Which begs the question, what the $%&@! am I going to do?
Last night I helped run a big event for TimeBank. It was fun - in the lead up to the event I don't think I clock-watched my days once, except to remark on how on earth it went from morning to night in the space of a second. I learnt some things about myself - such as when I'm busy I have more energy and need less sleep and that I like wearing electric blue (thanks for the dress Siany) and that holding a clipboard gives me a sense of power. So maybe I'll become an events planner. Or maybe I'll follow up on a jokey remark where I asked a complete stranger (who is opening a venue in Boston) to hire me and he didn't look horrified by the suggestion.
I could do anything. Anything, that is, that doesn't require formal qualifications (International relations and english lit don't really lend themselves to many vocations).
I'm trying to embrace this possibility for change rather than feel overwhelmed by it. I have time to figure it all out - the US Immigration Services have kindly prohibited me from working for my first 3 months in the states, which gives me some thinking space. I can volunteer. Goodness knows since I've spent the last 2.5 years telling other people to volunteer, it's probably about time I did. I may have to put off reading War and Peace, in favour of determining my life's path, but who was I kidding about that anyway?
What I absolutely will not do is watch re-runs of The Hills / Miami Social / Wives of Orange County (if I say I won't do it enough maybe resolve will translate into reality). I will take control. I will think and weigh and consider. I will not become a sloth. I will find the promised path to career fulfilment. And in the meantime, I might start carrying around a clipboard to make me feel more in control.
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