A S.A.D.ist at Christmas
I’ve always grappled with Christmas-Seasonal Affective Disorder, overcome with an inexplicable sadness during the happiest time of the year. It must be DNA—my mother said her normally gloomy Uncle Clarence was positively cheerful during the Great Depression because everyone was in the same sad boat as he was all his life. I remember his wife, on the other hand, as being somewhat ebullient and once wearing shoes that had “Let’s Twist!” stitched on the toes under a dancing couple.
An unmistakable invitation to a party, if there ever was one.
We’re all in a sad boat right now, and I guess there’s some solace in that. But for the first time in a year, it feels like our boat might be headed for a safe harbor. Toward a vaccine, travel, window shopping and bar hopping, lingering in a shop, dinner with friends , and not worrying that each breath we take is vacuuming up a stray virus. Regardless of what’s ahead, I know I’ll never take for granted friends who have been little lighthouses in the dark…who delivered groceries and homemade soup to me in those early terrifying times, who brought me fresh-baked bread, who bought Powerball tickets with the dream we could move to Portugal to escape Trump if we won, who Facetimed and Zoomed and stood on the other side of my fence to talk through masks, who dropped off little bouquets of homegrown flowers, who had a bow for my wreath delivered and who left the anonymous gift of a Christmas cracker for one on my gate! This plague year reminds me that life is too short and precarious to sit alone in the dark. Too short and precarious to be Uncle Clarence at the feast. Too short and precarious not to eat all the pie possible. Yes, we have to mourn all we’ve lost, all the damage that has been done to our world, but this Christmas, at least for a few days, my mantra will be “Let’s Twist!”
Nikki Hardin is a writer of stories, musings, and memories. Her poetry has been published in Riverteeth Journal. She was the founder and publisher of skirt!, a monthly women’s magazine in Charleston, South Carolina. You can reach her at nikki@thedailynikki.com.