I always take the first week of December as annual leave, and I always tell people that I don’t plan to do very much with it. Well, not two years ago, when I was on maternity leave, obviously, and last year it was the last week of November, but before that I had a long-standing tradition of taking the first week of December as annual leave, and this year I reinstated it.
The theory is that I get a bit of breathing space with which to start my new year. I observe at least the beginning of Advent in a meaningful way. I take some time to look back at the past year and forward to the next one. I do some writing, perhaps. I get a break from the enforced cheeriness of secular office Christmas (this is less dire than it used to be before the pandemic). I take long walks. I contemplate vast clear skies. And yes, I do a bit of shopping and go to the post office at a time of day when the queue isn’t out the door.
That’s the theory.
I’d forgotten that what actually happens is that I get ill. Whatever stinking cold is making the rounds, the moment I take my early December break, it hits me. Cough, headache, runny nose, nosebleeds, any combination of the above.
This year there’s been an earache and a sticky eye as well. Apparently there’s something absolutely miserable going around, and since it’s lasting a fortnight (so says my neighbour) I probably have another week to go.
(Last year, by way of variation, I was fine during my week off, but then had an unpleasant gallbladder flare-up the week after. The year before that, who knows, I had a five-month-old baby and I can’tremember. The year before that I was pregnant and still in the “constantly exhausted” stage. Before that I might have dodged it with the help of the pandemic restrictions. But before Covid it was definitely a thing.)
I’m particularly annoyed this year because this happened when I took three days off in September, too. But I was tired, and I knew that I was tired. I suppose it’s been a hell of a year, and that’s all there is to it.
So I’m trying to let this be a time of patience, as I suppose is only fitting. If I’m not feeling up to trimming the hearth and setting the table, I can still look east, believing that Love the Guest doesn’t mind the cat hair on the cushions or the toys on the floor. (That carol has been in my head a lot recently; I was meaning to write a post about it. Not this week, though.) I’m trying to accept the experience of being ill, even if I can’t enjoy it, rather than wishing I was somewhere, somebody, else. I’m trying to keep my temper. I’m trying not to worry too much about the next few weeks, and mostly managing it, because I just don’t seem to have the energy.
Next year, then, I might remember that my body seems to need rest as much as my mind needs to process and review. I might make myself a list of things that are gentle and restful but still feel appropriate to the season. I might be prepared for the first week or so to be utter chaos, and to trust that there’s meaning in the chaos too, there’s help for my helplessness, there’s space for everything I need to do, and grace for everything I don’t get to. And this year I’ll try to live that.
Kathleen Jowitt 