Sneak

The holidays took me by surprise this year. Thanksgiving showed up too early, and now Christmas is bearing down. Charlie Brown Christmas is on tonight, marking the official beginning of the countdown to the new year.

Don’t be fooled by Dick Clark starting 10 seconds before the big moment: the countdown starts tonight.

(Dick Clark, by the way, has made a deal with the devil, I’m convinced: “I’ll host the show but only if the passing of time doesn’t count for me.” Or maybe his agent made the deal, and he doesn’t know yet. Either way, is he really the most appropriate person to mark the passage of time?)

It’s been a hard year for Shannon and me both. We started it in a psychiatric hospital. Since then, this year has seemed to be about death more than anything else. It’s reared its ugly head more times this year than I can ever remember.

There have been good things to rise out of the ashes of destruction, though. Mama and I are talking more that we have in decades and both being honest. Shannon and I know who our friends are, and our friends know that we care for them as well.

Bad years like this often drive wedges between couples. The stress can seem overwhelming sometimes and lead to frayed nerves and temper flare-ups. Not to mention the residual stress on already-tight finances.

That hasn’t happened to Shannon and me, thank the good Lord. If anything, this awful year has brought us closer together and made us appreciate each other a little more. We’ve both had lessons about the fragility and precariousness of life. For that reason, we hang on to each other more tightly than we ever had.

And we’ve learned more than we ever knew before that some things just ain’t that important. I’m not sure if we actually knew it before or just suspected, but now we know with the certainty that rises to the level of faith.

So let the countdown begin. May the new year be brighter and happier. May it resonate with joy and peace. May our lives and those of our families and friends be abundant and filled with joy. May we all know the peace that passes all understanding.

It’s never too early for that to sneak up on us.