When I returned home at the end of August, Costco already had Santa lights and Christmas wreaths for sale. Brea's Downtown Promenade was in full seasonal attire the day after Halloween. Even with these warnings, I still found myself jerked into the holidays this past Thanksgiving week. For the past four years, I have been coming home for the holidays; this time, I was just getting settled at home in a peaceful rhythm when a storm of "how have you been" coffee dates infiltrated my Google calendar. The catching-up conversation overwhelmed me, mostly because I felt done after saying three words: nanny, tutor, job-search.
Nothing against the wonderful friends I got to see who are in med-school, getting teaching credentials, and really feeling God's presence in their life right now. I just don't know how to explain a journey within stretching to the tips of my capillaries over a cup of tea. I don't know how to tell my aunts & uncles at the carving table I have some crazy future ideas and I'm exploring how to go the next step. Fortunately for me, my friends and family are more than understanding of my roller coaster journey. After saying my three catch phrases including 'nanny', 'tutor', 'job-search', they either give encouragement by relaying their past challenges or make me laugh at a game of quidditch pong. Yes, quidditch pong is as exciting and magical as it sounds.
Never before have I felt so interrupted by the holidays. Thanksgiving Day seemed to rupture my peaceful spleen and tear out my pacified hair. That is only because I have been in a melancholic hum-drum of applying to jobs and digging deep in my soul. Actually, the shake is necessary to surface my mind again in the world. You wouldn't believe how far I get lost in my mind.
On the way home from Thanksgiving dinner in Oceanside, my mom let out a dramatic gasp as we passed the Imperial Highway exit on the 57 freeway around midnight. "Wow, look at all these cars lined up to go shopping for Black Friday! That's digusting." It truly was shocking, and the hours following the stroke of midnight on Black Friday only continue to shock me. The stack of ads in the paper and the Brea Mall parking lot are the most visual reminders that "the holidays" have arrived. Well, Thanksgiving may have jerked me into a holiday spirit, but it could be just the jerk I need to keep me moving forward full-throttle like a Joan of Arc riding in battle on her white horse.
When I returned home at the end of August, Costco already had Santa lights and Christmas wreaths for sale. Brea's Downtown Promenade was in full seasonal attire the day after Halloween. Even with these warnings, I still found myself jerked into the holidays this past Thanksgiving week. For the past four years, I have been coming home for the holidays; this time, I was just getting settled at home in a peaceful rhythm when a storm of "how have you been" coffee dates infiltrated my Google calendar. The catching-up conversation overwhelmed me, mostly because I felt done after saying three words: nanny, tutor, job-search.
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