This Writer’s Life—There are Always Moments to Start Over

by Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo

Today is Christmas Eve and for those of us who celebrate Christmas, it’s the culmination of a really busy, and for me, lovely season. I have always loved Christmas and everything about it. My mother made it fun and special for my sister and me and the sentiments the season evokes have grown into adulthood with me. But, of course, as a mom now with a lot of irons in the fire, it’s pretty tiring. I keep remembering things I forgot to do as soon as I am relieved that I have finished everything.

Photo: Ariel da Silva Parreira

The other day was Winter Solstice. The moon rose low and large. My son and I stood outside to get a look and he said, “It’s so bright!” It was, with a wide corona encircling it. The night before, when I tucked him into bed, he’d said, “Tomorrow is the first day of winter.” I said, yes, it was, or we could think of it as a day of rebirth. Even though it was the darkest day of the year, it meant that every day following it would bring a little more sun, a few more moments of brightness everyday until it was summer (Noah’s favorite season). He giggled and said, “Oh, yeah!”

I feel rather drained right now. Maybe it’s the idea, the suggestive nature of our calendar: December is an ending in our collective view of time. I am as run down as this year is. I feel like I am running short on ideas, on inspiration, on creative energy. It seems every word I write must be dragged from my unwilling brain. I am overextended in every direction. Frankly, I am simply tired. But if I know myself, I think that once January dawns, I will feel renewed. It feels like an opportunity to start over.

So, now that it is all winding down, I am going to focus on rebirth and renewal, like the sun. And glean energy from the unified idea of the newness of time. In the spirit of the new sun and the new year upon us, I am going to, yet again, start over.

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