A false holiday
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There's something about this time of year that encourages in me an element of lethargy. Perhaps it's the sense of anticlimax that accompanies the season that makes me feel like I'm constantly waiting for something else to happen; not quite fully content by events to date. It's the waiting that makes me lethargic. So confident am I in my mind that something bigger and better is to come that the false anticipation makes me less eager to start anything else.
Take this blog, for example. The blogs themselves are sometimes difficult to finish at the best of times. There is a folder on my computer with nearly a dozen article stubs I've not yet managed to pad out into a completed piece. But, at this time of year, it just seems even more difficult. I've been meaning to start this one for days now and I'm only just getting round to it, having already stalled for much of the day so far by finding anything and everything to distract myself from the task at hand.
And I've actually taken time off work for this period. The company I work for runs a skeleton staff over the holiday season and, to be frank, virtually nothing happens. We operate a call centre in support of our software products and it's rare we'll have more than one or two calls in over the whole period. Some of the other teams suffer too, purely for the lack of movement around them. It's a great time to do those little tasks one never normally gets around to, but beyond that it's difficult to find the motivation for a flurry of intense activity when there are so few people around you, and you could swear sometimes every noise has its own empty echo in even the smallest of rooms.
So, admittedly, I'm not missing much by not being in the office. And with the credit crunch of late, things have been somewhat uncomfortable there anyway. But sitting here in the lull period between Christmas and New Year, one can't help but feel at a loose end. The parties have temporarily died down until the very last evening of December and the days until then feel like filler, awkward in their stillness.
Part of me longs for a real break; one of my own choosing where the activities are mine to decide upon. I've welcomed the rest that this holiday season has brought, and it's been nice to be away from the office for a few days, but I wasn't really prepared for the time off when it arrived. Instead, I find myself flagging slightly, and I'm barely halfway through.
Of course, as I wrote at the start of the year, the biggest anticlimax of the season is yet to come. In a few days' time, we'll all gather in earnest to watch the passing of a second that marks the end of this year and the start of the next. I for one will be glad of a return to some semblance of normality.