PILLOWTALK: The Morning After (Deborah Goodwin)

Jan. 2, 2012 (ShapeShiftas) -- I sort of love the day back to work after the holidays.

You get to say "Happy New Year!" to everyone for the next few days in your most upbeat voice. You are done with all the frantic celebrating and overconsuming. Even though you don't do resolutions, you are determined to work harder and smarter than you did last year, and you approach your work with new eyes and renewed focus. Plus, you probably have something new to wear, and, if you were one of the lucky ones who went away, you are sporting a (slight) tan and look and feel refreshed.

This week has that same reborn, anything-is-possible, Back-To-School feeling as does the first week in September.

We haven't gone away over the Christmas break since we moved to Vermont. It is so stressful and expensive to travel over the holidays that I am always glad when we can stay home.

It wasn't until we had kids that we got to stay home, we would usually be visiting our various parents. One year, though, I joined my husband in London, where he was on assignment, on Christmas Eve, and then we went on to Amsterdam and Paris for New Year's Eve. Now I didn't mind travelling over the holidays that year!

Yes, it really was that fun!

This past week is usually the de facto start of ski season in Vermont, and many other people travel over the holidays to come here and ski/ride. The truly hard-core have been skiing at Killington since Halloween on man-made snow, but most of us don't get out until the Christmas break.

I try to get the family and friends to come here for Christmas and lure them with promises of skiing and riding. So it's a good thing that we had no guests this year, because there is no snow, and our usual mountain had like two trails open the one day we went.

Today, it's bleak and weird outside; it was raining but now it's getting really cold and freezing the road surfaces including our infamous driveway. Vermont in the winter is no fun if you can't go skiing and sledding, and I certainly don't want to do it in my car.

Today has this odd, limbo feeling anyway, since only some people have to work and the kids don't go back to school until tomorrow. It's as if today should be Leap Day instead of Feb. 29.

Most everyone I know agrees that 2011 is a year better left behind and that 2012 has got to be better, no matter what that Mayan calendar predicts. But this January 2 seems to be holding on to the past year for just one more day, maybe so we recognize that in our eagerness to move ahead, to get to work on all those New Year plans, time is passing, and one more year has gone by.

2011 was a year I will never forget, and I am grateful to have learned its lessons. Now, since I can't go skiing anyway, I'll get Back To Work. Happy New Year!

peace, Deborah

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