New year.

2021 is over. It's 2022.
But now the celebrations and holidays are also over and as if by the flick of a switch, everything just gets back to the gunk of regular everydays. It always leaves me kind of disoriented and out of place. Yeah, the holidays are messy, rushed (despite stores bringing in the seasonal stuff sooner and sooner each year), stressful... A week long, yet always seem to whoosh by faster than expected, faster than one could prepare, no matter the plans or the time spent on it. It's over before you know it.
Then what? PLOP, back to the drab common times again. It already can be felt: the days are already getting lighter, already getting longer. The lights go. The ornaments go. From private dwellings, and even more so from public places, much if not all the decoration is gone on the 2nd or 3rd. There's no easing back into anything, really. The things set aside, put on temporary hold to prioritise private and personal aspects are all resumed. The special atmosphere is gone in the blink of an eye.
Anxious, scared about what those regular days bring again. The break is always nice but always so short. Gone before you realise it was even there, because you were busy stressing over food and relatives and visiting and schedules - and it's stress, but that is what it's all about. The whole rest of the year you don't pay as much attention to these things as you do during these few days.
Back to being alone - even if not being alone isn't a thing in general, there might be more of a subtle sense of closeness when so much of the world just stops and shuts down. Now it's just back to the dread and the deafening cosmic noise of loneliness.

Marriage?

It's a funny thing, being shown a marriage proposal photo, just out of the blue. You know, the classic setup: guy on his knee, offering up the ring, girl being oh-so-overwhelmed and shocked and happy. Is it a commemorative professional photo, or is was that really how it happened and was caught on camera by someone who was aware of the plan? Honestly, I don't know, because I didn't really look. If anything, the former is just further proof of things being taken seriously, of people caring enough to go to such lengths. But I didn't really spend time looking at the background details once I recognised what was happening and who was in the photo.

A distant relative whose family my own mother could always only loathe and despise and hiss at: justified in part only, and even that goes all the way back to her childhood, which was way too long ago to still be harbouring so much resentment about. And in any case, it shouldn't even be directed towards them, but towards their parents and grandparents for creating the circumstances that they did - but I digress.

A distant relative, whose family, despite my mother's eternal contempt and disdain (because they're just oh-so-stupid, and such know-it-alls and just generally ingratiating), could actually move not only to a different country, but to an altogether different continent, even, and without knowing any language other than our own at that. 

A distant relative, whose marriage started in a dark, mouldy apartment, and whose family has since gone through more poverty, several illnesses including a brain tumor, but who apparently could remain together, and love each other, and respect each other through it all. 

Whose family seems to have just... lived through life in the most normal manner. Could just remain as normal and pedestrian as it gets, and be content and happy with it.

While we grew to be stuck here. in hatred, in the iron grip of control, miserable, in pieces, and cut off and pretending and exhausted and fearful and bent and broken. Because we just had to look down on everyone else, because we've always been oh-so-superior, and all the others have always been just oh-so-stupid and oh-so-insufferable.

Right, mother?

Photographs

It is just ten minutes before midnight when I wake up. I don't feel well rested, I don't feel calm, I don't want to get up because it's the middle of the night and it will be a long day that I don't want to start. But I can't sleep either. What's in front of my mind's eye are - old class photos. From elementary and high school. Not one year in particular, not a few people in particular, I just keep seeing all those, as if a slideshow, I keep seeing all the kids I went to school and grew up with... I can't really figure out why. I wonder where those pictures are now, I know mother put them away too many years ago... I wonder where my memories are, which drawer is hiding them, would I even remember all the faces, all the names, anything that happened at all? Why would I even want to remember? It's not like I ever really had a good time or enjoyed myself... back then. I wonder where my life is?

where ever

So the holidays are gone. No tree, no lights, no decoration anymore, it's all been done away with yesterday. In the dark of the morning, at around 7. I guess that answers the questions about the lingering spirit, huh? Rewatching Kouhaku, wishing I had a Timeturner and could go back to December, because I actually yearn for the mood...

And trying not to look away, behind the window, because there's - nobody there. I don't like it when you're all gone. The silence makes me shrivel up and feel smaller than I usually do. Insignificant, unimportant. Afraid.

But I'm not sure I like it when one of you shows up and tries to talk to me, either. There's barely anything to relate to, and it's just becoming less and less, too. At the same time, there's just an increasing amount of things to envy all around, and... that just makes me feel like shit. Because, honestly, good for you. I'm happy for you. It's great and all, you do deserve it. Can't help that it amplifies the empty silence though. So I just get angry at myself, angrier than usual, on top of everything else I already hate myself for, more than enough. It's an even shittier feeling.

Or I just feel belittled. Ridiculed. Made fun of. Taken for a fool, a sort of last resort to turn to when there's nothing and nobody else. That is a feeling I know all too well. That is a feeling I've always hated - who doesn't, right?

It's just not good either way.

The Day After

It's such a weird period, this time of the year.

Before Christmas, it always starts way too early. One almost becomes numb by the time the actual holiday rolls around, because we grow so used to all seasonal items, decoration, lights. But then just like that, we don't want the holidays to be over, because overall it's such a nice few days of winding down. Regardless of the year before, or the preparations and the celebrations themselves, one can simply bundle up, cozy, mostly undisturbed. Even if it all just lowkey and we don't appreciate it in the moment. Before we know it, Christmas Eve is over, but there's still two more days that are just different: so much of the moving about happens here, visiting whoever is deemed important enough, and accepting visitors as well, lots of food, lots of sweets, lots of getting tired.

Then there's those few "off" days in-between, that nobody really knows how to spend. Going back to the regular routines doesn't apply, doesn't feel right, even though they are just regular days. Slowly, unnoticed, building up to New Year's Eve, changing some decoration, switching to different food, maybe doing some additional shopping... And on the day, it all happens again, all condensed into a few hours. Getting ready and then going out if we have an invitation, or again just cozying up in front of the TV with some favourites or just random picks. Perhaps getting sleepy due to not being used to being awake so late. But the adrenaline kicks in as midnight approaches and rolls around, bottles popping, glasses clinking in the relative darkness of the dim holiday lights or the screen. And then - perhaps just as quickly, adrenaline seeps away, the realisation hits that we've been half asleep for hours, and can't wait to climb in bed.

The first day of the new year always starts slowly. Getting up a lot later is disorienting, not having anything to do is weird - not wanting to do anything, maybe not even having anyone around, just the same. Waiting for the world to wake up, if we weren't the last to open our eyes, that is. We realise: that was it, it's all over. No more specials on TV or online or in games, only the leftovers to clean up. Whether that's dishes and glasses and bottles, or the glamour of the holidays that are suddenly left without much meaning: they're only chores to deal with. Reality is switched back on. The illusion of cheer, of care, of peace, of caring - all of it is over, right?

It's only replaced by a pang of appreciation for those dull, gloomy, quiet in-between days, that wasn't there in the moment. When perhaps the thoughts on our mind is a yearning to return to normalcy, because so much time, special time at that, all spent together with all the family and friends, or lack thereof in other cases, was getting on our nerves, because it can easily be just a tad too much. When perhaps we only had daydreams of being somewhere else, celebrating somewhere else, doing things that would be more meaningful, with people who might be more significant but couldn't be around for whatever reason. When we couldn't wait for the whole thing to be over, but we didn't want it all to be over, because we never got to do what we wanted, and getting back to the dreary regular everydays would only be worse.

And suddenly it's a yearning for those after-days... for what they could have meant at one point in life, but what they never really did. Starting up again, on some fresh energy and rest. Seeing the usual people again, going to the usual places again, a sense of lowkey safety and belonging, but with a breeze of freshness that the new year brings. Getting out and away from the latent suffocating enclosure of the holidays, and back to something more comfortable...

if only.