Christmas Eve Day 2020 - Shoveling and, Sorry to Report, Some Hopelessness (and Not Due to the Snow)

Thursday, December 24, 2020

Began the day by shoveling. Dale shoveled yesterday before the storm was over and it's nice he thinned it out because there was a lot of snow. The airport is officially reporting just under 9 inches. 

Dale wrote on his blog: "And with this snow, I can again take pictures of the beginnings of Mt. Crumpet in our backyard.  In a normal year, this pile gets to be 6-8 feet high.  We’ll see what happens this year."

Also: "Most of us up here in the usually great white north figured we’d see a snowless Christmas this year, but that emphatically changed yesterday. I’m not even sure how much snow we got -- 8 or 9 maybe? --because it was a full fledged blizzard yesterday so it’s hard to know from looking at it.  Joe and I just finished up shoveling. It’s -4F with a -24F windchill so this snow is fluffier than early season snows and I like it so much better.  The wind kind of packs it hard though, so we did have to put our backs into it.  You can see all the leaves that got trapped under the snow. They kind of sully the freshness of the snow, but at least now most leaves that escaped being raked and bagged this fall are trapped under the snow until spring."

Yesterday I realized how my current emotional state parallels the current weather. The temperature plummeted yesterday. By late evening I felt frozen and hopeless. I don't know that I've ever entered the Christmas holiday feeling the way I did. Mind you, I've felt many strong emotions during the holiday itself: anger, joy, exuberance, melancholy, but never hopeless. It wasn't the change in temperature. This feeling has been building over the past year and now I have time to be with myself and think about it and process it and all I can say is that this year has been just awful. I know there are others who have had it easier than I have and I know there are others who have had it worse but it's been awful. I don't know that I even know where else to begin to put the feelings I have into words. Maybe I'm not quite as hopeless as I think because I'm aware that I'll eventually come out of this and will hopefully be better for it.