Christmas (baby please come home)

Hey, what happened the last couple of years?  Great question.  The answer is…nuanced.  To blog in December is not always an easy task.  It always seems as though the time I take to do it means I am taking time away from something else, something more important.  Maybe not more important to me, but more important to…others. 

The first few years I blogged at work, when I was working as a minor cog in the wheel of capitalism. No one noticed if I spent 20-40 minutes over the course of a day spalling sentences together to make a blog entry.  But then came promotion and more responsibility, and the feeling that  was being watched and monitored constantly.  Certainly, I was not being paid to blog, until I was, but not about Christmas, but I digress.  I am cognizant of the fact that it was not an appropriate use of company time.  Then company time became all I had, and then I still managed to do it.

Then 2023 came, and I got 2 entries in, and one of them was really good (gift of the magi) and then… I stopped. And no one noticed. Or no one said anything.  And the intrusive voices in my head said, no one cares… it is basically a cry for attention anyway… real men have better things to do… Kathleen has to do Everything and you just type lame stuff in a blog no one reads… Every year you fall short of 25 anyway… Honestly, you are bad at this… and on and on. So I didn’t finish.  No one even noticed. At least no one said anything.

Last year, December 1 came and went. I didn't start and then it felt too late and again, no one noticed. Why does it matter anyway?  I thought maybe like most online blogs it just died a silent death.

Fast forward to this summer, my son Paul and I were having a conversation about the day drinking and crafting videos.  I shared some of the intrusive thoughts that had shut that project down as well.  I said, “No one cares anyway,” and it just gives a desperate “I’ll do anything for attention” vibe.  Paul said, “Pop, that's the point, you are doing it for attention, and you don’t care what people think.  That is the whole point of all of it!” 

So here we are.  If nothing else, someday, years from now, these silly words will remain for my boys to read.