It’s a phenomenon no child should have to experience, though with the excitement and tantrums and rollercoasters of Christmas, I suppose most of us have at one point or another: the phenomenon of how Christmas tree lights look when viewed through tears. They become something more magical, and in some ways more beautiful – one of the rare recompenses of sorrow transforming into solace. I’d almost forgotten what that was like until the world defeated me the other day.
I’d gone into work already feeling shaky and unsure of myself. My planned outfit didn’t work as well in the light of day as it had in my mind the night before, but it would have to do. A wave of fatigue from not sleeping well insisted on it. And just when I took one last look in the mirror while Andy was heading out to start the car, I noticed a hole in the crotch, to the right of the zipper, which made it look like the zipper was down. Maybe that’s when I gave up on the day, because I didn’t have the care or concern or energy to put on a new pair of pants.
After a day of insanity, because in a world of Covid and madness all work days are insane, a day without taking a lunch break outside, and a day of non-stop business, I stumbled back into the car and was too shell-shocked and exhausted to speak. Andy may have wondered what was wrong but I didn’t have the strength or ability to put it into words then. When I got home and walked into the living room, I sat down and realized: I felt defeated. The day had licked me. The world had knocked it out of me.
Later in the afternoon news came of more loved ones with Covid, and the slightly bothersome and troubling way my Mom now has of saying she wasn’t too worried about it, which kicked off the memory of a recurring nightmare I’ve had since childhood of some monster chasing her, or some terrible fate befalling her, and I’m yelling and trying to explain it to her but she doesn’t listen and it ends up catching her, and I’m screaming and crying, “I told you!! Why didn’t you listen to me?!?” and then I wake up in a mess of sweat and tears.
When the evening had descended, I found my way to the Christmas tree. Still decorated and lit, it provided the only illumination in the room. I sat down beneath it, looking up into the branches, and I started to cry. Not because I’m going through anything particularly difficult, not because my life is any more stressful or despondent than anyone else’s – I simply let out the average weight of the world on any adult’s shoulders right now.
The tears came quietly, and it wasn’t a terribly awful cry – it was mostly from sheer exhaustion and years of worry. When I looked at the Christmas tree though my tears, the sensation was bracingly familiar, and suddenly I was a kid beneath the tree again, hiding from some act of shame or ostracization, something that made it clear that I was very different and very alone, and that not even my family could keep me company. I felt the same loneliness and isolation that I had in my childhood, and in a way that no one else seemed to share or understand.
Part of me understood that I was probably just tired. Tired of worrying all the time without any breaks of hope or relief. Tired of being afraid and trying to find solutions and only finding blame. Tired of canceling trips and plans and simple dinners with family and friends. Tired of trying to find some semblance of peace and beauty and warmth in this amazingly fucked-up world. Tired of attempting to make any sort of sense of it all.
There, in the tear-stained glassy visage of Christmas lights and ornaments, where branches blurred with bulbs, I sat in silent wonder and condemnation, unable to see a way out, letting this day of defeat wash over and then through me.
