As I get older, I feel things harder. More intensely. This is somewhat upsetting.
It's Christmas Eve, and it's my first Christmas away from home. I'm pretending that it's not happening. I have tomorrow off work, so Tiffany and I are going to Busan. We're renting a love motel and drinking wine while watching movies tonight. Tomorrow we'll spend the day at Spa World before heading home in the evening. I'll make some phone calls tomorrow morning, others tomorrow night, and still others Thursday morning... adjusting to different schedules on the other side of the world.
I won't open any presents. I won't eat any cookies. I won't cling shrieking to my father's back as we tear across the frozen pond, Otto chasing us, ears tucked in a high-speed, low-drag configuration. I most certainly will not watch It's a Wonderful Life. There won't be shrimp for dinner tonight, or kielbasa for breakfast tomorrow, or any pierogies at all. I won't go to Nayaug Park and laugh at the monstrosities of Christmas light hubris. I won't run out into the cold night with no coat to take pictures of the Christmas house, pictures that I already have from years and years before but feel compelled to take just the same.
Of course, I might not have done those things even if I'd been in the States. This Christmas would have been different.
Some of my officemates brought in chicken and pizza, so we ate that. I didn't have the heart (or the vocabulary) to tell them that I'd never eaten meat on Christmas Eve before. So I ate it.
I'm not Catholic anymore, I don't think. I certainly don't attend mass, and I don't hold with the teachings of the church. I guess I'm one of those super-typical lapsed Catholics. But things like eating meat on holy days still sit wrong with me. It's hypocritical and silly of me to feel that way, but there it is. I still feel that rush of anticipation before I enter a church, and I still feel God glaring down at me while I'm inside, demanding to know where I've been.
This weekend I wound up spending a few minutes inside of a church. Not a Catholic one, but still. It was the first time I'd been inside a church for reasons other than tourism in years. I guess I attended mass a few times while working in Spain, but I spent that time shushing children, and was obligated to attend, so it doesn't actually count. I'm not sure when I last attended Christmas mass with my family: definitely not last year, and I don't think the year before that, either. But then I was going to not cause a fuss, and I didn't participate in the communion, so I don't think that actually counts, either. I think the last time I willingly entered a church for the purposes of religion was for Ash Wednesday service in 2012. Then, I sat like an interloper, listening to the service in a language I spoke, but not quite well enough, and slipped out before the ashes were actually administered, feeling greasy and guilty. Before that, I have no idea.
Not that my few minutes inside of a church this weekend count as going to church. But it was still a little bit strange, and it got me thinking, and feeling.
Plus, it's Christmas.
One of my happiest memories is sitting in a series of Christmas Eve masses, sitting in the semi-dark, and all of a sudden the lights would come on, and the congregation would surge to its feet as one, and everyone would sing. Joy to the world! Joy to young Lauren, at least.
Generally, I deride religion. It leads to so much silliness, and suffering, and just general close-minded awfulness. But I do miss that certainty, that feeling of calm, the ritual of my prayers before bed. I miss the community of mass: everyone, all around the world, reading the same words in their own tongue each weekend, taking the same meal, reciting the same creeds. I miss that connectedness.
I still feel it. I feel it when I lock eyes with a stranger and feel their soul touch mine. I feel it in nature. I feel it with couchsurfing. I feel it when I touch my friends and loved ones. I feel it when a warm breeze caresses my cheek. I feel it in kindness and sadness. It's just less predictable now. I have to chase it a bit harder, and catch it a bit faster when it dances, fleeting, in the corner of my eye. I have to hold onto it a bit tighter.
So maybe I don't believe in the Church. But I certainly believe in love, and I definitely believe in people, and please trust that I believe in you.
It's Christmas Eve, and it's my first Christmas away from home. I'm pretending that it's not happening. I have tomorrow off work, so Tiffany and I are going to Busan. We're renting a love motel and drinking wine while watching movies tonight. Tomorrow we'll spend the day at Spa World before heading home in the evening. I'll make some phone calls tomorrow morning, others tomorrow night, and still others Thursday morning... adjusting to different schedules on the other side of the world.
I won't open any presents. I won't eat any cookies. I won't cling shrieking to my father's back as we tear across the frozen pond, Otto chasing us, ears tucked in a high-speed, low-drag configuration. I most certainly will not watch It's a Wonderful Life. There won't be shrimp for dinner tonight, or kielbasa for breakfast tomorrow, or any pierogies at all. I won't go to Nayaug Park and laugh at the monstrosities of Christmas light hubris. I won't run out into the cold night with no coat to take pictures of the Christmas house, pictures that I already have from years and years before but feel compelled to take just the same.
Of course, I might not have done those things even if I'd been in the States. This Christmas would have been different.
Some of my officemates brought in chicken and pizza, so we ate that. I didn't have the heart (or the vocabulary) to tell them that I'd never eaten meat on Christmas Eve before. So I ate it.
I'm not Catholic anymore, I don't think. I certainly don't attend mass, and I don't hold with the teachings of the church. I guess I'm one of those super-typical lapsed Catholics. But things like eating meat on holy days still sit wrong with me. It's hypocritical and silly of me to feel that way, but there it is. I still feel that rush of anticipation before I enter a church, and I still feel God glaring down at me while I'm inside, demanding to know where I've been.
This weekend I wound up spending a few minutes inside of a church. Not a Catholic one, but still. It was the first time I'd been inside a church for reasons other than tourism in years. I guess I attended mass a few times while working in Spain, but I spent that time shushing children, and was obligated to attend, so it doesn't actually count. I'm not sure when I last attended Christmas mass with my family: definitely not last year, and I don't think the year before that, either. But then I was going to not cause a fuss, and I didn't participate in the communion, so I don't think that actually counts, either. I think the last time I willingly entered a church for the purposes of religion was for Ash Wednesday service in 2012. Then, I sat like an interloper, listening to the service in a language I spoke, but not quite well enough, and slipped out before the ashes were actually administered, feeling greasy and guilty. Before that, I have no idea.
Not that my few minutes inside of a church this weekend count as going to church. But it was still a little bit strange, and it got me thinking, and feeling.
Plus, it's Christmas.
One of my happiest memories is sitting in a series of Christmas Eve masses, sitting in the semi-dark, and all of a sudden the lights would come on, and the congregation would surge to its feet as one, and everyone would sing. Joy to the world! Joy to young Lauren, at least.
Generally, I deride religion. It leads to so much silliness, and suffering, and just general close-minded awfulness. But I do miss that certainty, that feeling of calm, the ritual of my prayers before bed. I miss the community of mass: everyone, all around the world, reading the same words in their own tongue each weekend, taking the same meal, reciting the same creeds. I miss that connectedness.
I still feel it. I feel it when I lock eyes with a stranger and feel their soul touch mine. I feel it in nature. I feel it with couchsurfing. I feel it when I touch my friends and loved ones. I feel it when a warm breeze caresses my cheek. I feel it in kindness and sadness. It's just less predictable now. I have to chase it a bit harder, and catch it a bit faster when it dances, fleeting, in the corner of my eye. I have to hold onto it a bit tighter.
So maybe I don't believe in the Church. But I certainly believe in love, and I definitely believe in people, and please trust that I believe in you.
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