Waiting...waiting...waiting...

Why is it that working the week between Christmas and New Year’s is pure torture? It shouldn’t be. I mean, it’s quiet and relatively peaceful. The phone is unusually silent and there isn’t much going on. I should be organizing my office and getting ready for the debut of 2011, but instead I’m daydreaming and wishing I were at home with my family.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that I’m sitting here doing nothing. It’s just that I’m not doing things very fast. Maybe I’m on sensory overload from all the twinkling Christmas lights. Or perhaps I ate one too many sugar cookies?!

Or maybe I’m just ready for a nice long weekend.

Yeah, that’s probably it. No matter how many days off I get for the holiday, it seems to go by much too quickly. The only people who might disagree are those short folks whose age can be measured in single digits. Since they’re the ones eagerly awaiting the arrival of the white bearded guy in the red suit, the days leading up to his arrival seem interminable.

I, on the other hand, think someone has been spinning the clocks faster than normal just to confuse me. Wasn’t it just September?? I swear…

Of course, it’s been so long since my age could be measured in single digits, I can’t remember the last time I thought the wait time was interminable. Well, unless you count the time waiting at red lights in front of the mall at Christmastime. Or sitting in the dentist chair waiting to hear if you need a root canal. Yeah, those waits are pretty interminable. I guess I should clarify the statement by saying that I can’t remember the last time I was so eagerly awaiting a day to arrive that the wait seemed interminable.

Sure, I eagerly awaited the arrival of our wedding day last September…but it was mixed in with feelings of panic as I realized the day was getting closer and closer and we still had so many details to finish.

Okay, so that’s not really true. Our wedding went surprisingly smoothly and we were ready for the big day. Probably the only time in my life that I didn’t procrastinate, but that was mostly because I didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of a large group of people who know me.

No, I guess the only time you eagerly await an event in which you don’t have to handle a multitude of details is when you’re a kid. You get to reap the rewards (i.e., birthday presents, trips to Disney World, the arrival of Santa, summer vacations), but you don’t have to do much to get the ball rolling. That’s the adults’ job.

So my basic premise here is that the only time the wait seems long is when you’re a kid. But I realized that’s not entirely true. As I sit here anxiously awaiting 5 o’clock to roll around, I’m thinkin’ the wait is pretty interminable.

Sigh.

Yep. It will be an interminable wait – but I guarantee you that the rest of my long weekend will be gone in a flash and January 3rd will arrive before I’m ready to be sitting back in my office starting the new year!

So…in case I run out of time to write another blog before 2011 rolls around, I wish you health and happiness. I wish you lots of love and much laughter. And I wish for you to remember how it felt to be a child who has so many events to be eagerly anticipated that time seems interminable. Yeah, that’s what I wish for you. And for me, too.

C’mon, clock. It's not 5PM yet??