Is there a name for this week yet? The week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day? A week that is not actually a holiday, but is not part of ordinary time. Right now it is December 30th, for me, which isn't even New Year's Eve. I don't know what we call this week, but I do know that lately I've been seeing relatable humor on social media about how this week is a type of limbo. And indeed it is.
Right now I am kind of bored from having too much time off of work. The delightful feeling of freedom of biting into a piece of chocolate cake has been replaced with the bloated, gross feeling of eating frosting from the can. And at the same time I am bored, I don't want to do anything. I don't even know if I can do anything! I see buses running and stores open, but I am not 100% sure that its not a put-on or a set-up. I might get on that bus and then it will just stop. It is the week with no name, after all. Hopefully, with nothing but the magical change of a number, I will be full of energy and making plans, but right now I can feel the enervation through my body, at the same time as the outside world seems like a painted background.
What is particularly unusual about my situation is that I am in Costa Rica, a country located about ten degrees north of the equator. In the "dead of winter", the sun sets approximately 30 minutes earlier than it would on the summer solstice. And in fact, despite the shorter days, the period from December through April is considered to be "summer" because it is the dry season. So am I sitting around on a sunny day while beautiful parrots fly overhead in a cloudless sky, and channeling all my memories of an Oregon winter? Well, in this case, the weather is cooperating with my mood and there is a "cold front". It is grey and drizzly and the temperature is hovering around the mid-60s Fahrenheit. Not exactly a Montana December, and not even an Oregon December, but maybe an Oregon October.
I thought I was going to do something today. A last hurrah of the year, so to speak. I woke up at 4 AM (just a little before the abnormally early sunrise) and couldn't get back to sleep until finally sleeping until noon. I decided that the day was trying to tell me something. Decided to stay at home. I did manage to do a bunch of laundry and clean a little. I really don't need those crumpled-up AM/PM receipts, My bedding and towels are all fresh. The jumble in my kitchenette is a little less jumbled. Maybe all of these things will help me feel that things snap into place once those numbers shift and the sun comes out, and I will be all prepped and excited for the new year. Then again, a lot of my bad feelings are about more than the weather and arbitrary numbers.