My Plate is Full

“You’ve Got Mail” has been my favorite movie since its release in 1998. I watched it for about the hundredth time this morning instead of going to church. It’s cold and gray outside today and the leaves have blanketed my backyard where my black cat is joyfully watching them fall while sitting on the cold grass. Getting into a cold shower, putting on Sunday clothes, and getting out in the chilly air just didn’t appeal to me this morning.

My plate is full, I’m tired, and feeling overwhelmed with “stuff”. I’d like nothing better than to stay home, forget I have a job and get on with my life. Forget about the holiday season, that hasn’t become my problem yet. Decorating a tree, shopping for gifts and the usual Christmas preparations are, for now, on a back burner. I have paperwork to complete for my job that has piled up higher than the leaves on my patio.

The semester will end December 19, one week short of our usual six week grading period. So everything has to be finished sooner and it seems there is more to it this time. Not only are there the usual grades to complete, there are major semester tests competing with the Christmas rehearsals my third graders are going to. We go on a field trip around town this Monday to perform their play to a rest home and businesses. A lot of fun for the kids and I wish a carefree day for me. I am sure that I'll be worrying over the review time for a major science test being lost to this day. Sixty-six portfolios are still in need of graded rubrics to stories I have yet to read, which will be reviewed by a supervisor on Wednesday. My "don't worry" mantra has lost its meaning.

The community chorus I sing with has rehearsed weekly all semester for the concert to be presented this evening. It will leave me no choice but to clean up, dress up in the much too expensive sparkly top I was made to buy, and join my fellow chorus members to sing a requiem in Latin. A tedious bit of culture that is not really my forte’, but a worthy challenge just the same. An interruption in my working day, but a necessary respite to release me from this tomb.

As I sit here with papers strewed across my lap, spilling onto the couch seat next to me, the soft, calming music of the movie soundtrack plays from the television. I’ve seen this film so many times that I don’t even have to look up from my work to view my favorite scene, but I do. The Meg Ryan character, Kathleen Kelly, is reminiscing of a simpler time when her mother was still living and her worries were few. The music swells and she is dancing with her mother as a little girl. I find myself relating to this character so much as she faces another major life change. Kathleen narrates, “People are always saying that change is a good thing. But all they are really saying is that something you didn’t want to happen has happened.” She adds to this “…it was like my mother had died all over again and there was nothing that anyone could do to change it.”

It may sound like I’m missing my mother. It has been thirteen years since she left us and I am missing the family that would gather each year at my parent’s home for Christmas presents, laughing and good eating. As with each holiday season, I remember the heartfelt love my mother put into every Christmas. I can’t look at poinsettias without thinking about that little house on Holland Avenue and the pots of red flowers that my daddy would buy for Mother each year for their Christmas Eve wedding anniversary. Even a single piece of sweet, white divinity candy conjures up pictures of Mother and her sister baking in the warm kitchen layering the confection drops on sheets of wax paper while my cousins played Monopoly with my brother and me. I wish, like Scrooge, that I could be transported back in time just to view one of those Christmas Eves again.

But for now, I have to think about the next week and a half on my job. My partner is leaving after this semester. A lot will change with the beginning of the year and I’m concerned that I will have more responsibilities to make up for the void she will leave on my team. So I can’t think about the season at hand right now. I have work to complete and new plans to write. By December 19, much of the work that confronts me today will be completed. Then, I will have two weeks to relax. With God’s blessing, my sons’ families will bring a warmth and happiness to Christmas that will satisfy my longing for the season.

Happy Holidays to all of my readers…whoever you are.