After Christmas

After Christmas is always such a weird time. It's like this in-between, let down period of time where everything is very surreal. The Christmas tree is still up, along with all the other decorations, but the day you've been waiting for is over. All of the parties and festivities and special Christmas exhibits at the museums are finishing up. People will have lights on their houses until April when it finally gets warm enough to take them down. All the ugly Christmas sweaters at thrift stores and vintage stores are put back into storage. Window displays of Santas are taken down. All of this pent up excitement and anticipation just kind of combusts into nothing. It's such a weird feeling. I don't really remember it as a child. Perhaps Christmas day was more fulfilling when I was younger - a day of endless sweets, fattening food, and piles of bows and wrapping paper. These days, Christmas day is hardly exciting. I prefer advent, and Christmas Eve is probably the most exciting part of the season. So when you are no longer counting down to anything, and when Christmas Day lacks the grandeur that it once did, the whole thing finishes in, well, nothing.

That being said, Christmas wasn't bad. There were my usual favourite dishes, like cheesy potatoes. I made fudge - and this time included peppermint marshmallows. I watched It's a Wonderful Life (my favourite Christmas movie). I gave presents and received presents - and they were all good. My dad gave me a lava lamp and a tea infuser. My mom gave me snowman socks and some bath salts (like the kind you put in a tub, not the synthetic drug - what kind of people do you think my parents are?). It was a good day. I was surrounded by my usual, small family. This year, my sister was missing because she moved across country, as well as my boyfriend because he's been very sick for the past few months. But even so, it didn't really feel like anyone was missing. Christmas day just wasn't magical like I always remember it to be as a child. Instead, the leading up to Christmas is magical, something that wasn't when I was younger. It's a trade-off. It's a trade-off with an unsettling ending.





I'm transitioning back into my work wardrobe. After a couple of weeks of wearing old jeans and sweaters and my Doc Martens, I'll be heading back to my internship. I've been trying to wear dresses and proper boots and carry my briefcase and things like that - things that a young professional would do. Today I wore this dress that an old friend's mom gave me. It's from Forever 21, where I wouldn't normally shop (overwhelming!), but it's very beautiful and has a very nice fit. I'm not much for florals, but it's professional. It's like, you know, young hip creative professional. Not stodgy old boring professional. I wear this all the time with my cardigan from The Loft (well, from the second hand store, technically), but I'm thinking I might put a blazer with it and see how that dresses it up more.

p.s. These boots have pretty much been my best friend this winter.





My day today was supposed to be spent tailoring my resume, writing cover letters, following up on jobs I've already applied for. It's surreal to think that I'm graduated and have no more homework, but trying to find a job is possibly even worse than homework. My entire future hangs on this, rather than just some grade that might affect my overall grade, which may affect my haggard and hopeless GPA.

I wish that I could go to all of these potential employers and just talk to them. I don't want a sheet of paper to represent me. It's hard to express my enthusiasm for a job without sounding fake. I worry that my lack of experience will overshadow any enthusiasm I might have - enthusiasm which they won't really capture unless they call me in for an interview, an interview that I probably won't even get based upon my experience. I've been reading so many self-help books and columns and chapters about how to get a job, but none of them are curbing my anxiety. And, furthermore, I don't even want to sit down and pound out cover letter after cover letter because they all sound so inauthentic and strange.

Obviously I am going to need to go to the coffee shop, get a chai, sit down, and make myself do them. I need cover-letter-writing discipline.





I'm off to bed before a long day of work tomorrow, and then play with my best friend! She's back from studying in Glasgow, but only for a few days before heading back - and boy, I've missed her! My best friend since the age of 4, and the person who knows me better than anyone else. It'll feel like home at last. Keep warm, my friends xx