What's in a Day?

In the last hour I've received two apologies from friends for the way they've acted in the last week. One by email, one by phone. No, the manner of transmission doesn't cheapen the sentiment in my eyes...It's simply making me think.

What is it about the holidays that makes people either giddy or griping? At my age, I've noticed that by New Year's, most everyone is ready to trade the festivities for some semblance of normalcy again. I think that's because of the protracted amount of time spent plunged into the family environment once again.

Everyone is someone's child, and at no time is that more prominent than at Christmas, when parents are fighting over who you'll see and where you'll go and what you'll do when you get there and how long you'll spend with them and whose sweater you'll wear to dinner and....I'm getting off track. No Christmas (or Hanukkah, or Kwaanza or what have you) can compare to the magical days spent when you're a kid, setting out cookies for Santa and singing carols with your family and seeing everyone in one place, or whatever your family tradition is/was. But every December 24th through December as-late-as-you'll-allow-them-to try, parents try to do just that. Even parents become children again, which can be interesting to watch as an outside observer, or a precocious child involved in the struggle.

But I digress. So all of us well-adjusted (or seemingly so) adults do what we're "supposed" to do and jet/drive off to the family homestead for days of baking and eating and forced family that end up driving us nuts by the time it's over. Then, when we come home, the new year is upon us and there's all that pressure to change something just because it's a new year. I've actually quit making New Year's Resolutions....why should one day of the year be THAT remarkably different from any other. If that's your only logic, why not make a change on the first of every month? Or every Monday for that matter? I've only kept one NYR in my life, and that was one that had more to do with my outlook on life than being time specific.*

So where was I? Oh, yes...all these well-adjusted adults, fresh off a solid month of binging and gorging and drinking and partying feel this pressure to change themselves in some way. So they flail out at the world, not always choosing something good to change. Which brings me back to the topic - my friends' apologies.

One of them apologized for a specific incident, the other for a general malaise. So while it's great to know I'm not losing one of the people who knows me better than anyone in this world, the change that led us into this situation (vis-a-vis 2005) is still a frustrating one at best. I support her and stand by her and hope she'll do the same for me.

At the same time, if this is the way most people live their lives, I'm tempted to return to my logical ways.

*Footnote: And if you've read this far to find it, that resolution was to appreciate people more, not only in my mind, but outwardly with words and with actions. It's the only resolution I've ever kept.