I love You Papa.

(alright. I just read Adam Belz’s recent blog entry and I’m inspired to write something “short and sweet”. I’m going to try my best)

It’s Boxing Day today. Each day on the Anastasis, I wake up, jump out of bed (I’m the top bunk, so I really do jump), brush my teeth, grab my soul book, throw some comfy pants on and head for the dinning room. I used to be uncomfortable with entering that dinning room so freaking early in the morning. Just being outside the comfort of my own home, invaded by smiling faces and curious people. The dinning room exhausts. I used to be uncomfortable walking in there with my morning face. Now it’s routine. It’s normal. When I stop to think what my “normal” has become, it sort of astonishing. I was siting out on the dock, Christmas eve night, with Signe and one of Macullough’s roommates, Matthew Cramer, and this question came up. I had commented on how something wasn’t normal and then immediately questioned myself by stating, “Well, what is normal?” My normal used to be family and home. It’s now invasive faces and chaotic streets. My normal is this unsettling independence and a job that a 30 or 40 year old should have taken but they’ve decided this 18 year old would suffice. My normal is full of bad smells, horrific deformities, out-of-this world recovery stories, and the constant battle to serve others over myself. This new normal is the relentless pressure to put this crazy life into words and the daily pushing of self to bigger and better things.

Each morning, after I enter that invading dining room, I head back to my cabin to brush my teeth. On the way though, every morning, I stop in reception. There’s a sign that changes with every morning. It’s titled “Daily Plan”. Each day, the new date appears at the top and it list the events that will take place. This morning, since it’s the ship’s holiday, there wasn’t much planned but it told about the history of Boxing Day. The Chief Electrician, Craig Rogers from Australia, was in my cabin last night and told me there, too, the history of this 26th day in December. The daily plan read: Boxing Day, December 26th, is a public holiday in Australia. The day probably takes its name from the fact that on the day after Christmas in Britain, the alms boxes which had been placed in the churches over the Christmas period were opened. The contents were distributed to the poor. On the same day, apprentices and servants broke open small earthenware boxes in which their masters had deposited small sums of money. In large households, the family may have used this day to distribute Christmas boxes to their staff.

That’s what I stopped for in Reception, to read this morning, after I finished eating my bowl of frosted flakes. That was the 26th day of December.

I woke up the morning of the 25th expecting to feel something hollow. Or rather, I went to bed expecting to wake up feeling something hollow. I woke up though, with usual excitement. Usual giddiness. Usual happiness. Usual smile. I woke up on December 25, 2005 very similarly to my past December 25th’s. I thought I’d be sad. Thought I’d be comparing. Thought I’d be annoyed. Yet the morning had come. The 25th had finally come. All the sadness, comparing and annoyances had their places the weeks prior. During the preparation of Christmas is when I compared. The pre-Christmas frenzy is when I became annoyed. When this morning finally came to pass, maybe it was a feeling of relief that spurred on my happiness. Maybe just knowing all the holiday preparation and all the weeks that come before Christmas, which are supposed to be spent with family, we’re over. They had passed. No more comparing. No more exhausting wishing for what I couldn’t have. Finally this day of untraditional preparation had come. The day, alone, was happy. I loved the day. I woke with childish enthusiasm as I jumped out of bed. Tarme and I sat, 6:30 in the morning, squatting down, pointing with unconfined excitement at the presents that had filled each shoe laying outside our door. Our shoes had filled. Presents overflowed. They laid all around. Small baggies of baked goods and a gift certificate for a mary-kay handmasage I saw first. Lafe Wood, a boy on the ship, was still up, distributing his presents and came around the corner to find us rummaging through our shoes. Embarrassed at our own inescablable childness, we rushed inside.

Tarm had to go to work in the ward at 7 and wouldn’t be done until 2. The girls and I waited to open our gifts until this family member had returned. I went back to bed, surprising myself by how quickly I fell back to sleep, not waking until 10. I woke to Anna’s finance below me. He had come in, waking her gently on this Christmas morning. It made me smile.

I had a good Christmas. I’m especially enjoying these days afterward. I’m relieved the preparation is done. The comparing it over.

(yeah. Adam’s was a bit shorter. I try again next time)