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Dec. 26th, 2004 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSomewhat numbed tonight on wine and bailey's irish cream. I've been drinking far more than usual this weekend. Actually I think I've drunk more this weekend than I have in an entire year. Haven't gotten drunk. Just spaced it out a bit - keeping myself comfortably numb. Of course a lot of drinking for me, to some is barely a taste. Not a huge drinker. My addictions don't tend to be of the oral variety. Which may explain why I've also posted more these past few days than usual or than I had planned. My family wishes I'd stop writing my thoughts on livejournal and write them in a story instead. They feel, perhaps correctly, that livejournal may be absorbing my creative energy.
Why not write my job woes and airport woes in a series of short stories, my mother suggests, you could make them witty a la Bridget Jones' Diary. When I attempt to inform her how the writing process doesn't exactly work that way, she gets really hurt and defensive, so I back down and think - okay maybe I should give it shot sometime this week. Might be cathartic.
Someone posted how wonderful it was that I'd faced my anxiety and fear and discovered it didn't amount to much. Heh. Apparently I'm doing a lovely job of putting on a brave front in my livejournal, ain't I? Making light of something that ain't light at all. In actuality - as I'm sure 30,000 other stranded travelers and passengers who were separated from their families this weekend can attest to - it amounted to quite a lot. It was not a tiny fear demon, but more like the swirling tempest of the hellmouth. I'm certainly not looking forward to entering an airport again any time soon, and if I was stressed this round, my stress next time around will be about quadruple that. I fear being stuck somewhere and yep this year I got reminded of why. And was paralyzed by it. No slaying of demons I fear. I only wish that were the case. I dealt with this situation *very* badly, I'm afraid. But to my credit - I will state that in all my years of traveling and I've had some horrendous travel experiences, never in my life did I encounter a scenario as bad as the one I did on Friday.
Over 600 planes were cancelled this weekend. Over 1000 people were stranded at the airport. And it was Xmas Eve - which to most of the people traveling is a beloved holiday to be spent with family and friends.
But hey, we got off lucky. Over 10,000 lives were lost this same weekend in the Far East - India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia...it was the worste earthquake in history. My heart goes out to those poor souls.
So this was NOT a merry xmas for so many people. At least 40,000. It was in my humble opinion a difficult one. I did not celebrate it. It passed me by. (And for many people reading this, that may not seem all that important, after all what is one more holiday? Big whoop? Right? But this happens to be my favorite - it was since I was a small child. I enjoy it more than birthdays or 4th of july or New Years or Thanksgiving - because it felt warm to me as a child. The lights, the tree, the pies (apple as opposed to pumpkin, prefer apple), no football on tv. Just presents and holiday carols. And my family. As I've grown older, it's changed a bit, but I always got the smells of my favorite foods in the kitchen, my mother's home baked fudge, lasagne, the taste of fruite cake soaked in peach brandy for a month, the Nutcracker suite on the stereo, a fire in the fire place. Things I realize now I took for granted. My Dad reading the New Yorker, sometimes alloud. And of course the story about the family that got stranded in that manger long ago. If you aren't Christian you may not get it - but it is an important holiday to those of us who were raised Catholic and a warm one. Missing it did teach me something...that we cannot plan our lives and that things that happen elsewhere do affect us. We do affect one another's lives for good or ill. A snowstorm in Cinncinatti does affect people in Philadelphia. An earthquake in the Pacific does affect people in Thailand. And when someone dies, we all experience that loss in ways we'll never know.
Tonight my thoughts and prayers are with those who did not have a merry Xmas, who are suffering either emotionally or physically in some way. They have the flu or just got over it. They had a nightmare travel episode and barely got home or are still trying to get home, which is worse. Or their loved ones were washed out to sea in a tidal wave/tsumani in the Pacific. Or dead from cold in
Indiana. Here's hoping next year is better for us all.
Why not write my job woes and airport woes in a series of short stories, my mother suggests, you could make them witty a la Bridget Jones' Diary. When I attempt to inform her how the writing process doesn't exactly work that way, she gets really hurt and defensive, so I back down and think - okay maybe I should give it shot sometime this week. Might be cathartic.
Someone posted how wonderful it was that I'd faced my anxiety and fear and discovered it didn't amount to much. Heh. Apparently I'm doing a lovely job of putting on a brave front in my livejournal, ain't I? Making light of something that ain't light at all. In actuality - as I'm sure 30,000 other stranded travelers and passengers who were separated from their families this weekend can attest to - it amounted to quite a lot. It was not a tiny fear demon, but more like the swirling tempest of the hellmouth. I'm certainly not looking forward to entering an airport again any time soon, and if I was stressed this round, my stress next time around will be about quadruple that. I fear being stuck somewhere and yep this year I got reminded of why. And was paralyzed by it. No slaying of demons I fear. I only wish that were the case. I dealt with this situation *very* badly, I'm afraid. But to my credit - I will state that in all my years of traveling and I've had some horrendous travel experiences, never in my life did I encounter a scenario as bad as the one I did on Friday.
Over 600 planes were cancelled this weekend. Over 1000 people were stranded at the airport. And it was Xmas Eve - which to most of the people traveling is a beloved holiday to be spent with family and friends.
But hey, we got off lucky. Over 10,000 lives were lost this same weekend in the Far East - India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia...it was the worste earthquake in history. My heart goes out to those poor souls.
So this was NOT a merry xmas for so many people. At least 40,000. It was in my humble opinion a difficult one. I did not celebrate it. It passed me by. (And for many people reading this, that may not seem all that important, after all what is one more holiday? Big whoop? Right? But this happens to be my favorite - it was since I was a small child. I enjoy it more than birthdays or 4th of july or New Years or Thanksgiving - because it felt warm to me as a child. The lights, the tree, the pies (apple as opposed to pumpkin, prefer apple), no football on tv. Just presents and holiday carols. And my family. As I've grown older, it's changed a bit, but I always got the smells of my favorite foods in the kitchen, my mother's home baked fudge, lasagne, the taste of fruite cake soaked in peach brandy for a month, the Nutcracker suite on the stereo, a fire in the fire place. Things I realize now I took for granted. My Dad reading the New Yorker, sometimes alloud. And of course the story about the family that got stranded in that manger long ago. If you aren't Christian you may not get it - but it is an important holiday to those of us who were raised Catholic and a warm one. Missing it did teach me something...that we cannot plan our lives and that things that happen elsewhere do affect us. We do affect one another's lives for good or ill. A snowstorm in Cinncinatti does affect people in Philadelphia. An earthquake in the Pacific does affect people in Thailand. And when someone dies, we all experience that loss in ways we'll never know.
Tonight my thoughts and prayers are with those who did not have a merry Xmas, who are suffering either emotionally or physically in some way. They have the flu or just got over it. They had a nightmare travel episode and barely got home or are still trying to get home, which is worse. Or their loved ones were washed out to sea in a tidal wave/tsumani in the Pacific. Or dead from cold in
Indiana. Here's hoping next year is better for us all.