I was five years old when I first realized how much Christmas means to me. My siblings and I would occasionally choose to sleep in the living room, and certain mornings my eyes would open to our glittering Christmas tree with silver-foil leaves. It made me smile. The colour sparkled with the sunlight coming through the windows – making it a more beautifully enchanting sight. I kept closing and opening my eyes so the feeling inside me wouldn’t fade away. My spirits since then have been fastened to the magic spell of the Christmas season.
Santa Claus had been sweet, too, when he gifted me with a charming plastic baby doll – in spite of its immovable arms and legs – the first time. I was thrilled. His arrival had become an anticipated event in the three or four years that followed – until that Christmas day when he brought me house slippers as presents. (And oh, I forgot to mention how I caught my mother in the bedroom during dawn laying down those gifts from Santa)
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*Fast forward several years to get to this day*
The kiss of December’s cool winds I have always awaited. Days of bluer skies, extravagant celebrations, as well as jovial moods from everyone have arrived. After all, it’s the merriest month of the year – which provides no room for somber themes and exhausted emotions. Yet the season’s perpetual essence stands before me to look me in the eye – defending its presence. How do you define a period that now represents my deepest loss?
As days go by, I ponder on the coming grand display of fireworks I’ve always looked forward to every eve of January 1 since I was a child. Will I be able to enter the feeling safely in watching them with thrill and awe again, I wonder.
Some evenings I walk along the streets… I pause from time to time as I linger and allow all those alluring Christmas dazzles to mesmerize me. But in spite of the majestic array of colourful lights everywhere, I feel numb inside. I was hoping their radiance would be the balm my grieving soul needs; that their brilliance might help in raising my spirits up to align with the stars at night. Even so, the glamour around could not be sufficient to deliver the original essence of Christmas for me.
Resurrection is out of my reach now. Carrying on is all I can manage. If what’s left of my world still affords me to live for tiny joys my heart can embrace – then it’s my task to flash the smile I can manage, find simple pleasures around, laugh at this world’s silliness, and cart myself hopeful towards a brand new year.
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I’m not, however, ending this year with just another soliloquy of my heartache. I’ve come here, too, to say goodbye to the mandatory monthly musings that has been compelling me to bring a post out each month. The reminder is necessary no more because I conjecture I’ll be writing anyway whenever I can.
Fast lives do slow down. With most of my life strapped to my back, my blog will continuously get attached to the recurrence of my reflections and thoughts induced by ineluctable folds of common sense. But if you are ever wanting of a brief conundrum at any time in your life, simply recall how this blogger has repeatedly bungled life’s bundle of contradictions.
As I bid farewell to my monthly musings that has sustained my blog for two years, may you also not forget…that I am forever your babe.
Bohemian Sentiments 