Anticipation

I love the quiet. I love the quiet of being the last person in the office—which I was this year. The others had taken off a day early, but I came in to the office—I had no traveling to do, and Christmas plans, for once, were running smoothly. I won’t say that I was the most productive that I’ve ever been at work—that would be a LIE—but I was getting several things done that I had not gotten done during the course of a crazy semester.

And I was affording myself the luxury of taking my time. It’s not often that any of us get to do that—and I was starting to feel the effects of being too rushed. So—in the quiet office, with the lights dim and no interruptions—I cranked up the Christmas music on Pandora and cleared my desk for the coming week.

I love that anticipation of time taken off, of holidays spent with families. I love anticipation in general. It works for date night, vacations, even the plan to call a close friend later that evening. The show you wanted to watch all day long that comes on at nine.

I am an anticipation freak. I can’t get enough of that feeling—the one where the feel-good butterflies are flitting around in your stomach, and you feel as if you are the fastest roller coaster in the world.

The best part of this weekend will be late Friday night—early Saturday morning. Snow will be falling softly outside and the world will be hushed and serene. We will have finally gotten everything under the tree. We will have finished wrapping—after the kids struggled to close their eyes for God only knows how long. J will have his scotch (his tradition) and I will have my glass of wine (mine) and we will stretch out on the ground looking up through the Christmas tree at the lights and marveling at the joy we will be able to bring the next morning. Then we will realize that morning is only four hours away, and we will head up to bed after setting the coffee pot, but J will let me play the Christmas music on the radio (he HATES falling asleep with the radio on, but does afford me the chance to listen on Christmas Eve) as I drift off.

Then, when the boys wake up a few short hours later, they will come in and jump on the bed to wake us, and for about two minutes, all of that anticipation feeling will rush back over me, as I vicariously experience their anticipation. It’s almost as good as coffee and cinnamon rolls.

Almost.

But I will make coffee and cinnamon rolls, too. Just to be safe.