Holiday Lag

We've got jet lag. Why not holiday lag? Or post-holiday dislocation?

It's the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I traveled to my sister's the day before T'giving and returned home yesterday afternoon. I had a lovely time. We were in the country and the utter silence was amazing. Well. It wasn't total silence. Nature made herself known, but even the animals we saw all seemed to be on a mute button. Unlike in my condominium, there were no neighbors living above, below or next to our walls. We were the creators of our own joyful noise at their house.

What did we do? We basked lazily in front of the wood stoves. We played darts. We saw a herd of deer. At one point, I startled a mole and a cotton-tailed rabbit. T'giving morning we went for a walk on a nearby railtrail and saw the most magnificent hawk fly lazily across our path. And the sleeping? Superb. No one to wake you up several times in the middle of the night. The silence was almost loud in its quietude. It was as it felt - far, far away from my life - with "civilization" close enough by not to cause panic in this surburan dweller.

And then I came home. Being back feels completely unreal. It's something like the jet lag you get when you travel by plane for 6 or more hours after going away for a week. Being home does not feel like home. Perhaps it is because the preparation for and then, celebrating the holiday was so tightly scheduled. We all wanted to make the most of the time we had for the holiday. Now, I'm back to being my own deadline maker. I'm not liking it much, even tho' I sometimes craved alone time while surrounded by family!

Yes. I unpacked, put my leftovers (yum, leftovers!) in the fridge and thought - o.k. Now what? It had been cloudy all day, when near sunset, the sun broke through under the edge of clouds. The sky was amazing. There were reds, purples, oranges, pinks, mauves, greys, whites, darks and colored wisps. Thankfully, I went out for a drive simply to watch the whole sky. It was beautiful.

Then I was home again. Things still felt strange. They have all day today, too. Yes, I have appointments, dates, maintenance work, plans, etc., etc., and they all seem unreal. This happens to me at Christmas-time too. Holiday lag shows up in the feeling that you're living a kind of quasi-real half-life until your world rights itself (or re-asserts itself). Or the lag ends when you've gotten so involved you don't realize you're back in the swing of things - until you suddenly wonder how long ago you actually went away on a holiday. Maybe it would feel differently if I hosted the festivities at my place.

I imagine any host or hostess of a holiday event - complete with family and guests - never suffers from holiday lag or dislocation. After all, the host is at the epicenter of the holiday. Their life never stops for the holiday. It is all an ongoing part of the hosts' lives. It's the guests, who, upon returning home, need to figure out where they were when they left, and restart their lives. And sometimes, the restarting takes a few days to figure out. It's a bit like the broken sleeping patterns you get after you've flown through several time changes.

The other (and biggest for me) drawback to holiday lag is that it allows far too much space and time for unpleasant thoughts to grab your attention. Perhaps holiday lag is meant to be a character-building time. Me? After all these years, I'm kind of tired of building my character. I'd rather other folks built their characters.

I'll have to think about this hosting business.