Chinese New Year is just 2 days away. Activities have been planned and preparations are underway. I should be ecstatic. But I feel kinda numb and indifferent.
I've never been much of a holidays' enthusiast. To me, they're all over-hyped; and everytime the festivities peak, I just get detached and apprehensive. If I were to dig deep into my heart and fess up, christmas trees, multicolored lights, mandarin orange trees and clanging cymbals during a lion dance performance don't have the same effect on me as they do on the average person. I actually find it a tad pesky to hear those clanging cymbals and drums when I'm trying to get my shut-eye on Chinese New Year mornings.
Now this is gonna make me sound like such a grouch (a la Oscar of Sesame Street), but I sometimes find festivals to be some sorta 'interruption to normal life'. It's a holiday and I'm work-free, yet I can't go shopping for clothes or scouring the racks for shoes because most of the shops are closed for the holidays. I don't get to head for my Bodypump and RPM classes because the gym is also closed for the holidays. I can't run errands because banks, offices and possibly the whole world has gone MIA for what seems like eternity. All this just makes me feel so unproductive and slacky, and it's pretty crappy. Holidays celebrations break my routine, and the moment they end; I'm once again battling the post-holiday blues, trying to regain my momentum and getting back to being the my-pre-holiday-productive-self.
It's not like I'm a holiday-hater or anything of that sort. I appreciate the time spent with family and friends during the holidays. I enjoy going on trips with my family. I like being able to take a breather from work every once in awhile. It's the festivities and hype that I find exhausting and so unnecessary at times. But that's just me.
My typical weekend is filled with a plethora of activites from electric guitar class, working out at the gym and sessions with my trainer, shopping, catching up on housework, getting some down-time at home, piano practise sessions, et cetera. This weekend however, would need nothing short of a miracle for me to check even half of the items on that list. I'm still feeling more than a tinge of bummed-ness over the fact that I'm missing the session with my trainer this weekend from having to travel for you-know-what-occasion-it-is-in-2-days-time.
Ah, what can I do. The things in life we cannot change. All I want is a laidback holiday where I can relax. But that never happens. So I'm filling up my Ipod to the last byte with non-holiday-esque songs. Scheduling into my PDA the gym sessions I get to attend once the gym re-opens after the holidays. Making a list of things I can do to make full use of my time-off.
I try to smile. It's not a convincing one but nevermind. Hopefully the anti-festivities-glum-ness will fade when the family gatherings begin.
Because family's the 'stuff' that holiday celebrations are made of.
