Respire

The last line of her message reads “Wine soon?”  I’m up to my eyeballs in holiday preparations; it’s like she’s thrown a life preserver to a drowning woman.  I ask if she can meet tonight.

Yes, it’s true; I haven’t yet cracked a single egg for cookie dough. My tree is a nightmare of cords fueling white light bulbs of all shapes and sizes, with an alarming number dead or dimming as they await last rites. The ornaments are in a box, save for the handful of ill-placed giant, personalized, shiny globes hanging at the precise height of the narcissistic teenaged boys rifling through for anything eponymous.  So much for elegance and balance.  Of course I need a drink.

A few years ago at my church, the pastor was so taken with a homily presented by one of our priests that he requested a repeat on a subsequent Sunday.  It’s one that resonates the very first time he speaks it.  The highlight is this:  If you’ve got time to pray, pray for 15 minutes.  If you don’t have time to pray, pray for an hour.  It’s such an awesome reminder that we all just need to slow down, to focus on what truly matters. And so I tell my beloved friend that the last thing I have time for is a night out, which is exactly why I’m pushing all my work aside to go out.

Dinner (and wine) with my friend is cathartic. She is exactly what I need as I take a well-deserved time out from the rush of the season.   The sparkle and splash of my holiday cards and cookies is a labor of love, but a labor nonetheless. And the demands of ordinary time often can’t be held at bay while we get our jingle on, which means we’re squeezing more into already packed lives.

The few remaining days between us and the holidays are guaranteed to race by faster than those coursers pulling the sleigh. To have any hope of actually enjoying them, we need to take some time for ourselves.  So I delegate all tree decorating to the teenagers.  I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist the urge to relocate a few (well, many) ornaments, but the heavy lift is done.  And while the mercury glass-colored glitter glue is drying on my stacks of handmade greeting cards, I’m taking a moment to sit by the fire and pen this post.  No, I don’t have time for it.  That’s why I’m doing it.