A Sense of Desolation

It's funny, Christmas was tough this year, but I am only now finding out how tough. And this doesn't even have to do with the credit card bill which I nearly fainted on seeing. I slept through a lot of it. Woke up early to go for Mass at the chapel near the house with Esther, and thence to breakfast to La Bodega. I didn't think we could go wrong with La Bodega but I was mistaken. A surly waiter coupled with a fancy breakfast that contributed to that swoon-inducing credit card bill as well as the runs for the next few days (wasn't that a fitting end to the year, seeing as I had spent a lot of the year with digestive issues?) and then back home to nap...only I napped the whole day away. It wasn't a fun Christmas for Esther at all and I thought, hmmm....poor planning. It was all due to poor planning.

But it was more than that.

Christmas, the day itself, has become something that needs to be endured rather than celebrated. Any sort of real festivity seems to have died with my mother.

So if I don't like what's on offer, I have to create my own. Figure something out or go overseas for a holiday during that time rather than staying here and feeling miserable.

I have to fashion a new Christmas out of elements that I love. I have a whole year (well, 11 months and 15 days more to work on it).

I have written out my Christmas card list, started collecting addresses, marked the date on the calendar to write them all out (one time I wrote birthday cards for August in February which may have been efficient but was totally strange) and the date to post them.

The other thing I need to do is start managing my credit card bill. And expenses. No more impulse buys on the net (funny thing, I rarely have impulse buys in any physical shop, unless it's a bookshop). I have to avoid Kinokuniya because a single visit almost always ends up costing me at least RM500.

So instead, I will make a list of books that I have on my bookshelf that I haven't read but planned to read sometime, and go through those - I'm on Milan Kundera's Art of the Novel now...which has to be read slowly. I don't think I will manage to finish all the books I set myself to finish this month but that's OK. As long as I have lists and schedules, it's all good. As long as I don't let up and keep on reading the good stuff, it'll be OK.

Maybe it will help balm the awful desolate feeling I have inside right now that threatens to overwhelm.

I cannot afford to be overwhelmed right now because there's work coming out of my ears and I cannot lose the plot, I have to keep working at it, chiselling away at all I have to chisel away at.

I feel so sad. And there's nothing I can do about it.