It's the first time I'm flying Southwest. Usually I go with the larger and much more crowded international airport, but my tickets this time were courtesy of the big orange and red plane. There aren't as many people here, but that could be because it's the middle of the week and the middle of the day. Without the thousands of people wandering about, I find that my trip is much less stressful. Thats not including the part where I'm preparing for third shift work in the short period of two days. The only other time I've been totally awake between the hours of midnight and eight in the morning was that one summer in college where I gradually pushed back my bedtime until I started waking up when the sun was going down. Unintentional though it was, at least I can recollect a time when I was entirely a night owl, and perhaps I can draw on that experience in the coming days. There are some people at my work that transition from third shift to first shift on Saturday, then make the reverse trip back to their routine on Monday. So it is possible.
Christmas caught me off guard this year. Actually, backing up two weeks, Thanksgiving snuck up on me rather stealthily as well. While I really love what I do, I hate that it makes the months go by so quickly. I feel like last week everyone was buzzing with pumpkin spice latte fever, but in a week and a half I'll be sitting in my parents' living room set upon pouring out my stocking and unwrapping gifts from under the tree. I wish I asked for paid leave the whole week of Christmas; now I'll be part of the skeleton crew that's covering for the several people who had the sense to take the week off. When did it happen that I had to plan to be with both sides of my family for the holidays? Sometimes I desperately wish to go back to the young days of wondering when school was back in session. When I had days of baking Christmas cookies with my Mom, all of us children helping to decorate the tree and hiding the chocolate ornaments in a place we were sure no one else could find, playing with our new games or reading our new books or fighting over the stereo player to listen to our new CD's. Nostalgia is always twenty-twenty.
This Christmas, even if I only have the one day off to celebrate it, I will try not to cram all of my favorite things into one day as I have in the past few years. I used to be stressed out that I wasn't making all of the types of cookies, or that we didn't watch all of the ten or so Christmas films we used to watch, or that the tree is decorated just perfectly with every family heirloom ornament. What will be will be, and all that truly matters is I get to share Christmas with the ones I love. Because it really does only happen once a year.
I suppose that's enough wandering for now. Only another hour until I get to take my four hour nap. I mean, flight.
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