A Little Melancholy

It's that sort of day.  Not sad, exactly.  Melancholy.  Pensive. Reflective.  Maybe its the gray skies of another rainy day.  Maybe it's the 3 vultures hanging out on the tree outside my kitchen window.  Maybe it's just because it's Tuesday.  But I think it's space where the tree used to be which reminds me of the times where loved ones used to be.  Let me explain.  We took down our Christmas tree last night.  Yes, finally, some might say.  I hate to take it down.  Always makes me a little bit sad.  You know the feeling when you next walk into the room and it somehow looks empty.  The space where the tree used to be represented something, a time, a place in our personal histories, another year gone.  It's not just Christmas that is over, it's a moment in our lives, never to return again.  I will never again have a Christmas where my son is 2.  Our lives will never again be the same as they are right now.

 This Christmas was not the same as the one before.  Our Christmas photos lack 2 loved ones lost this past year.  A dear friend and my brother in law, both gone.  Each Christmas is like a little time capsule for me.  I look at the photos and I remember what life was like then, in that moment.   We measure time by Christmases.  We say, "that was Austin's first Christmas" or "that was the last Christmas with Dad".  The people and pets that surrounded me, the home where I lived, all become part of that memory, that space in time.

 I don't know what the year ahead holds.     Sadness, for sure, for life can't always be sunny.  But good surprises too.  Some small, and maybe a few big ones thrown in too.

 This I know.  It will be different.  For good or for bad, it will not be the same as it is now.  It can't be.

 "Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow, until then we'll just have to muddle through somehow" advises the lyrics from Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.  Always seemed like such a sad song of resignation.  I propose we do more than just "muddle through".  Let's take a moment to reflect on the Year that was, even with a bit of nostaglia and then start making the happy memories we will cherish this time next year.

 Hey, it just stopped raining.  I think I see a few rays of sun......