Merry Christmas (What a Hell of a Year) - Thom Stone
It’s just not a great year for holly-jolly Christmas music, y’know? On one of my feeds, I scrolled past someone who noticed, after an afternoon of getting things done and eating nice food, an immediate surge of what they described as “survivor’s guilt for having a nice day”.
This song isn’t jolly, but it’s not depressing either. It’s maybe my favourite 2020 Christmas song, and not only for its excellent title. The lyrics contend with the daily effort of trying, despite it all, and of finding small gratitudes in a slower, scarier shelter-in-place world:
We’re so terrified of wasting our time,
But I’m thankful for the chance to waste mine
It’s a gift; nothing else there on my list
I am terrified of wasting my time, but I’m also terrified of getting caught in such a rush of productivity that I fail to be present in the lives of the people that matter to me. Y’know?
In late March or early April, a friend asked me if I was planning to come back to Canada. It hadn’t really occurred to me to move back because of the pandemic. I found myself wondering if I’d have considered that more seriously if Zach were still alive; in a different timeline, they would have been going to school in Toronto this spring, and I bet they’d have started isolating quite early on. Their broken heart certainly put them into a high-risk group. My guess is that I wouldn’t have flown home to isolate with them, because that alternate timeline’s Tessa is a person without a felt sense that I might suddenly lose the people I love.
Now I am back in Canada, near my parents and conscious of my limited time with them, but also distant from the people I’m closest to. Was moving the right decision? I came back partly to chase productivity, but more to chase a possibility of permanence. I wanted to be in a place where I’d feel less temporary. Of course, I hope much of the grey quiet I see outside my window is, in fact, temporary, that the after times will arrive soon, livelier and more connected.
I apologize for getting sentimental
I’m only trying to be sincere
I guess there’s nothing much left to say:
Merry Christmas, what a hell of a year.
What a time to be alive,
—Tessa