Divisions and Precisions

Silent Night

I may never see daylight again. As I was Christmas shopping this afternoon, the gleeful, greedy little gnomes inside my head waited until I was in the computer games aisle (yes, I was shopping for a present there, really), then jumped out and spotted both Baldur's Gate and EverQuest -- both games I've been marginally interested in for some time. The gnomes threw both games into my shopping cart. Really they did. The Sims has lost me for the time being, life online has been too quiet of late, and I'm in need of a new time sink.

May the gaming gods have mercy on my soul.

As I write this, I am waiting for EQ to finish downloading patches so I can actually log on and see what this thing is all about -- so far the process has taken about an hour, as I keep getting bumped offline. This is not an auspicious beginning. I'm in an odd frame of mind right now. The Christmas bug nipped at me today as I was shopping. I cried in the car while listening to "Silent Night" on the radio. "Silent Night" is the one carol that always makes me cry. Always. I don't know why. It just does. Now I'm sitting here at my computer watching it snow outside.

I feel both alone and at peace. And cranky. Don't ask me how it's possible to feel at peace and cranky at the same time. I'm managing it.

The aloneness and the peace are intertwined, I think. Aloneness is something I've come to terms with just lately. It's something I've not only come to accept, but to cherish. (Remind me of this, when spring fever hits in a few months and I decide that what I need more than anything else is a SO.) I heard a bit on the radio today (I think it was Garrison Keillor, actually) talking about the peace of Christmas, that moment on Christmas Eve when you step outside and just breath the air. There is a specialness in that moment. I've felt it. I feel a little bit of it tonight. Silent night, holy night.

Even that sacred quality though, stirs the crankiness in me. It is when I feel the touch of something divine, that I feel irritated, wanting to believe in something, some system, some religion, some philosophy -- but I don't know what. The spirit in me moves at random times. Nature stirs me. Music stirs me. Sometimes different aspects of various religions stir me. I just haven't yet managed to synthesize all of those things into a single belief structure that works for me. Now, at this intensely spiritual time of year, that bothers me. It makes me restless.

I suppose that what I term "crankiness" is really more just restlessness. Ready to move, ready to go on, but stuck waiting. That's true of many aspects of my life right now. There is so much inside of me at times, so much that I don't know how to touch. Writing helps, a little. Sometimes that restlessness grows so intense though, that I can only hang on, dull it with distraction, with food, with sleep, and wait for it to quiet again.

Or I suppose I could find out where it would take me if I let it. That idea's a little frightening. Maybe this time, maybe with the return of the light coinciding with the return of my solitude, I can let go and just ride.

Posted by Lisa at December 23, 2001 07:27 PM