We've all had at least one holiday season - whatever the holiday - when things just didn’t feel entirely right. Maybe that relative you were hoping to spend some time with couldn’t make it that year. Maybe the stress of the shopping and cooking and planning, and, perhaps, praying, just got to be too much, and the whole thing started feeling like a to-do list. Maybe the weather rained on your parade - or didn’t. Maybe you were far away from home. Or maybe you just plain weren’t feeling it that year.
Well, Jimmy had a Christmas like that awhile ago, and he was suffering from a serious case of the Holiday Blues. The kind that make you remember how magical it all used to feel when you were a kid, before you were the one who had to start making that magic happen for others.
Late in the evening, sometime between Christmas and New Years Eve, he laced up his boots and went for a long walk, to clear his head and make smalltalk with his shadow.
His Shadow didn’t have much to say, so Jimmy just kept putting one foot in front of the other.
It was one of those unseasonably mild winter nights we’ve been getting now and then over the last few years, and Jimmy enjoyed that he wasn’t actually cold. But he did find it bizarre that, instead of snow and ice, a wave of drizzle and fog was rolling in, and quicker than he’d realized, he wasn’t able to see much anymore.
A white-out in the dark! Just undefined golden patches of lamplight up ahead…
And as he approached the train tracks at the edge of town, he swore he could see a blurry dark figure in the fog ahead of him.
Everything looks different in the dark, and Jimmy’s mind started playing games with him - was that a hooded cloak, the man was wearing? Was that a walking stick? It was very late, and nobody else was out on the streets…
Oi! He called out, mostly to calm his own nerves, and the figure stopped and turned around.
Jimmy breathed a quick sigh of relief - it was just an old man, one he’d seen around town, gathering with the locals and regulars at the coffee shops, parks and restaurants.
Jimmy, that you? The man called back.
He introduced himself as James, and Jimmy now had a new friend to walk with. Of course, he knew who Jimmy was… one of the advantages of age, he said, he had all the time in the world to watch people coming and going, and ask busy-body questions, and people would answer without batting an eye. Nobody would deny a kind old man.
But why was James out walking so late at night? It didn’t seem safe.
James just shrugged and said, “It’s just what I like to do.”
As they walked together, the story of Jimmy’s Christmas came out.
That Jimmy had just moved to town after an ugly divorce.
That his parents had died over the last few years, and for the first time, he had no family to celebrate with.
It felt like he was “in between” everything these days - in between jobs, homes, spouses… he was too old to start a new career, too young to retire, but old enough to be eclipsed by a newer generation. It felt, he told James, like life had hit PAUSE on him, while the world kept moving on around him.
And James asked him, quietly… So, if life were going to hit PLAY again… would you rather it play forward? Or backward?
The question caught Jimmy off-guard. It wasn’t the words themselves, but the way they were asked. Did James’ voice catch just there? Something about it felt cryptic. Absolute. As though his answer, right here, right now, mattered. A lot. And he couldn’t quite explain why.
So Jimmy thought it over.
If he could turn the clock back, would he? It was tempting, but probably not. It was true that he’d suffered a lot of loss over the last few years, but… it had taken him all these years to become the man he was. Would he want back everything and everyone he had lost, at the cost of losing everything he had grown into, everything that could mean in the years ahead? It was a really tough choice, but in an honest moment, Jimmy had to say no… He just wished the hard stuff didn’t hurt so much.
So, forward then, right? The only other answer. Jimmy would carry the hurt. He would carry the weight of rebuilding. He would find a place to live, a productive job, he would make new friends and find a new partner to be a family with, he would make a home for himself and create himself a future in time to grow old into it, and he would start by never spending another Christmas alone again, and everything would turn out alright. It would be okay. Jimmy was sure of it.
But, man, what a long list of things to do… perhaps, he’d take another little bit of PAUSE before turning it all around.
And he looked at James, in the dark, dewey fog, a little unsettled at how hard it was to see the old man’s face beneath his hooded coat, and told him:
if life were going to hit PLAY again, I’d rewind it just a few seconds, to the Christmas market just last month. I’d want to watch all the people gathering together, shopping for their loved ones, chatting over drinks and snacks, and I’d want to see the live musicians play again. And I’d want to be there to see everyone walk around all month with rosy cheeks and Christmas in their eyes, wishing everyone they see, friend and stranger, well. I’d want to see all of the pageants and concerts at the churches and community halls. And then… then I’d want to ring in the New Year, surrounded by today’s strangers, tomorrow’s friends and neighbours.
Right here, right now, that’s the life I’d like to PLAY.
And Jimmy walked old James home.
A few nights later, he rang in the New Year, meeting new friends and neighbours out on the town.
By New Year’s Morning, Jimmy started feeling a bit lighter-hearted about the days ahead, a little excited even, eager to get a jump on things.
And then?
Well…
The rumour is that he found himself a new home and left, but I don’t know… he never said goodbye, and… we never really heard from Jimmy again after that…
(2024)