December 18th

It’s December 18th and I have no idea how that happened because the last time I had a firm sense of the actual date it was June.

It’s December 18th and the month is more than half over which means that soon it will be 2024 and this cannot be serious because the passage of time has not felt real since March 2020 despite so many things happening since then, many though not all of them wonderful.

It’s December 18th and it will be Christmas in a week and it was only this past weekend that I managed to lift my head above the end of the various semesters that I am involved with to start thinking about gifts or decorations and the idea of writing a Christmas card seems remote to the point of absurdity.

It’s December 18th and the days are getting to their shortest point which means the nights are getting to their longest point and I’ve always preferred nights over days anyway.

It’s December 18th and it feels like it’s still November outside, grey and rainy and not in the least wintery the way it normally feels in Wisconsin in December and the climate isn’t changing, folks, it has already changed and this is the new normal until it gets warmer still.

It’s December 18th and I still have students making appointments for advising this week because their lives are just that much up in the air and it’s good to have them making appointments when they have questions but it is historically rather uncommon at this late date, especially since finals are over.

It’s December 18th and the holidays are different from what they were back when and that’s just the way of things and you can lose the present if you think about the past too much so you might as well enjoy the people and times that are here with you now.

It’s December 18th and a few days of nothing pressing would go down well after the mad rush of the last however long but I’m not holding my breath.

It’s December 18th and that only happens once a year so you might as well celebrate it.

Because tomorrow it will be a day later.