God Jul

I lit the first candle at 4 in the afternoon, when the light began to grow wan through the trees.

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died...

It has been the worst year in my memory.

I am not usually the type of person to say these things. I'm really not. When all of my friends, year after year, spend January 29th and 30th counting off the horrible things that have happened to them, I spend a quiet moment or two in introspection remembering the good things.

But it started in November really, and I haven't felt safe since.

Don't stop, can't stop, it's like a freight train
Don't stop, can't stop, it's like an airplane going down

There are so very few good things this year. (Maybe even really only one, because he's the thread that runs through nearly every good moment this year.)

And there are so many bad.

I discovered a job that I'd taken was terrible. I managed to find a new job that promised great things, even if it only gave a small pay bump and meant the commute would be worse. That's okay, we were going to move and take The Next Step.

I took a vacation that was good, but also... well. If I'd known it was the only break I'd get, I probably would've done something different with it.

I started the new job. The boss I was supposed to report to quit. The guy I interviewed with turned suspicious and sour. The team I was to join had someone doing the role I'd been told I'd be helping, and he didn't want my help. Furthermore he felt threatened by me. There was no steady process. Another colleague left. And another. Down to three devs. Then we hired one, and another left. The team grew, the numbers shrank. Nerves frayed.

In May, my car was totaled.

Two days later, my heart was totaled.

I've got time, but you're tired of waiting
You only want me in other spaces
Come fill your gaps with people
I know no one
So lonely trying to be yours
When you're looking for so much more

I say my heart, but it was as if my future disappeared, like retreating backwards into a tunnel. My plans that would've made the small pay bump okay suddenly weren't happening. And then my rent went up. And I found, to my horror, that my decision to take that job, combined with the low pay and the fact that I'd been under market on rent for so long meant that suddenly... I was living paycheck to paycheck (more or less - I have savings yet) and unable to afford to move.

On these roads
Out of love, so it goes
How it feels when we fall, when we fold
How we lose control, on these roads
How it sings as it goes

(I still am, really.)

I watched friends and loved ones take vacations while I sat at home trying to find ways to spend less money, trying to think of ways to sell the things I don't need, trying to strategize ways to divvy up my things to take up less space, to require less room in a place I could maybe move to.

Shattered by an email
Your words will fade away
Castle built in the sand
Will only last one day
I'm holding on and I don't want to let you go, oh
Yeah, it feels like summer
Yeah, it feels like summer to me

But this past week I had my glowing performance review, accompanied by a raise that is such a pathetic pittance I was stunned and made some sort of half hearted comment like "every little bit helps." It's 1.2% my salary. It's 1/3 the rate of inflation. It's enough to cover five months of how much my rent went up just this year. It covers nothing. I spent way more of that day weeping in the bathroom than I would've expected; I busted my ass and moved heaven and earth and get nothing but some pretty words on paper.

It steeled me, if nothing else? I can no longer afford to work there - my health, my time, my sanity is worth so much more - and so now I have nothing to lose by telling them that they need to pay me more or I'm leaving. Because I will.

And I walked off you
And I walked off an old me
Oh me oh my I thought it was a dream
So it seemed
And now, breathe deep
I'm inhaling
You and I, there's air in between
Leave me be
I'm exhaling
You and I, there's air in between
You and I, there's air in between

This whole year has been the shortest day, when the light seems thin and wan, when the cold bites and nothing seems quite as it should be.

So farewell to the gloaming dark, and welcome the light's return. May things look up from here.

The Shortest Day
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.

-- Susan Cooper