A Lazy Holiday Season
There are two important lessons to be learned from procrastinating: 1) Don’t! 2) When you are stressed by a deadline and crazy busy, there’s not much time for stupid things like emotions. Because I can be an emotional person at times (especially at times when, I don’t know, the holidays are everywhere), I can sometimes overestimate the benefit of the second lesson while underestimating the first.
This past holiday season, I found myself procrastinating on a number of things. I took forever to get Christmas decorations up. I waited till the last minute to get people gifts (or just didn’t get gifts, sorry friends and family). I still haven’t caught up on writing the stories about events from December. And I procrastinated in one other huge way…
An Approaching Deadline
Cassie and I lived in Building #12, Apt #101 for just shy of two years. Then me and my dog lived there by our lonesome for another 9 months. The place was full of furniture, photographs, knick-knacks, treasures, trophies, gifts, food-stuffs, warm lighting, full bookshelves, filled closets, plants, dog hair, and, most of all, memories. It was a good home. Not to mention it was the only home our pup ever knew.
My lease on the place was up on the last day of December. I was not inclined at all to renew it. That meant all of December was supposed to be dedicated to organizing and cleaning and sorting and packing and moving things to storage. Naturally, I did not.
Cassie’s Dream to Move
From the moment we moved in, Cassie wanted to move out. Don’t get me wrong it was a nice apartment. It had a lovely view of the pool behind the retirement home next door. And our neighbors were lovely enough people to have stolen a bicycle off our back porch… while we were home. I joke about the couple of bad things, but it was a great place to live.
However, Kissimmee was still a place of trial for Cass. There her life had twisted and turned around so many times that the whole place had become one big reminder of that chaos. And it didn’t help that the city itself is chaotic—from the constant construction (even just in the ¼ mile around our home) to the craziness that is US-192 to the number of people who spoke languages Cassie didn’t to the homeless population that caused bomb threats down the road from her work and who drop disgusting kinds of “bombs” on the porch of her work place. So, she almost always felt a burning desire to leave it.
My Problem in Moving
After Cassie passed away, I didn’t want to move whatsoever. I loved the comfort of living in “our” home and of having a private place to myself that felt like Cassie. At least, until I didn’t. For some reason, things started to shift. Grief is exhausting, and while I initially loved to go home to my apartment for rest, eventually things flipped around. It was exhausting to be there; I had to leave my home just to feel rested.
You would think, as much as I wanted to move out, that I would be pretty eager to jump into the moving out process. And at first I was. I took one or two small carloads of things to storage with gusto (maybe 2% of everything I owned). But then I was over it. The Christmas season was more emotionally taxing than I expected. Plus, as I looked around at all the things I needed to pack, I realized how heavy it would weigh on my heart to finally pack up all of Cassie’s things.
The Other Problem
And again, my lease was set to expire on the last day of December—that is, New Years Eve. Christmas wasn’t bad or depressing at all. If anything it was the exact opposite! Christmas was about celebrating my faith while spending time with so many friends and so much family. I loved every minute of the day, even if the weeks leading up to it were kinda rough. New Years, however, was different.
New Years is about… well it’s about starting a year new. The holiday is about moving forward, moving on, celebrating your hope for the future, resolving to make your life different than it was. The whole day centers around shouting, “HAPPY NEW YEARS!” with friends, while shooting off fireworks to express all the joy in leaving the old behind and running headfirst into the new. It’s about embracing change while embracing someone you love (or at least like) in a kiss.
I had a hard time doing that.
My Solution
I resolved to avoid both problems through the magic of procrastination. See, if I put off packing, I could avoid all the extra heavy emotions throughout December. And if I had to do a ton of packing in a just a couple days, then I knew I’d be too stressed and in too much of a hurry to be sad or caught up in memories. Plus, if I waited until the last minute, I wouldn’t have time to think about New Years because I’d be in the thick of moving while everyone else was celebrating. The perfect plan right!?
Wrong
I found myself frantically loading up boxes upon boxes on the 30th. My brother and dad came down to help move the heaviest of things—couches, the bed, dressers, tables. Though my dad, realizing how much more I had to move, stayed through New Year’s Eve helping to carry off truck-load after truck-load to the dumpsters or to storage. It was a hot mess.
But truthfully, as messy as it made the process, I felt pretty great about how everything had worked out. There were a few poignant moments like taking down the corkboard wall of random memories and movie tickets. But overall, I was fairly happy and didn’t think about New Years in the least… until the fireworks started lighting up the sky.
At that point, 99% of my stuff was out. So, the busyness was calming down. My dad was heading out. And the only things left to do were throw away a few more bags, take one last shower, and drive to my new temporary home with Julep.
Was I sad? Of course! Change was coming no matter how much I tried to ignore it. But I wasn’t nearly as sad as I expected. I was dreading the process of moving out for so long. But I had also been looking forward to being moved out even more. Every ounce of me was ready for change. I just didn’t want to change anything. I wanted to run forward into 2019, but I also didn’t want to let go of 2018.
2018 was the last year I had with Cassie. How could I let go of that?
Hope
In this blog, the beliefs I have written about pretty much fall into one of two categories: faith or hope. Faith is what I believe has already happened or is happening. Hope is what I believe will happen. My faith had almost nothing to do with New Year’s Eve. Hope is what came through for me that night.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Apostle Paul, Romans 15
As a Christian, there’s a lot that I have hope in: a Father who will receive those who love him; a King who will grant glory and authority to those laying down their privileges now; a Savior who will continue to rescue us; a Redeemer who will redeem the brokenness we’re surrounded by; an Author who will continue to craft a wonderful purpose for our lives; a Comforter who will provide rest when we hurt; a Counselor who will guide us when we’re lost; a Spirit of power who will give us the ability to do what our own spirits can’t; a church family who will support us when we’re weak; and an unbelievable Love that will never forget who we were, but which at the end of time will wrap us up in a blanket, a blanket woven from the threads of our life by Love itself, some threads bleached of the stains we put on them, some threads made to shine like gold. And I hope for even more than this.
Because of that hope, the hope in “what will,” I can embrace 2019. With hope I can embrace 2019 with all the ways that I have to move on from my life with Cass in 2018. See, I hope in a Love that holds onto my entire life, and Cassie’s too. As surely as I hope in a Love that holds me now, that will hold me in the future, I hope in a Love that will never let go of the past I miss so much. Because I hope in that incredible Love who will hold onto it, who will hold onto to Cassie, I think I can let go. At least, I can loosen my grip.
P.S.
Since it’s been so long since I last wrote anything for the blog (in part due to the busyness of the holidays, moving, and med school interviews and in part due to the stress/anxiety/depression of the holidays, moving, and med school interviews), I decided something special was in order. So I decided to cram the content of this post into the format of a favorite children’s holiday book.
https://fromthedust.blog/how-a-grinch-stole-new-years/
Sorry there are no pictures, but 1) I’m not too great at drawing and 2) it would have taken much longer than I have time for to draw 50 pages worth of pictures like there was in the original.
Either way, it was fun to make and I hope it’s fun to read. Enjoy!
