Epiphany

This means I'm back at work.

I'm back in the office, not full time but the closest to it that I've been in three months. I realized yesterday that I'm coming up on my two year anniversary here, give or take three tours of duty. Our location has changed since February '07, my desk is different, but my job is roughly the same and so is my coffee mug. I complete the same ritual at home in the morning, watching MSNBC while I make my travel-friendly coffee and put together my lunch, which has been the same since the day I started: tuna, red peppers, plain yogurt. As I revisited these motions yesterday morning, I had strange flashbacks from the past two years all associated with whatever goings-on coincided with them. Hard-boiling eggs shouldn't come along with emotional baggage...but what can I do.

So it's Epiphany, the official end of the holiday season, but also the official launch into a new season of preparation on the liturgical calendar, from Advent to Christmas to Lent. That Catholic Church...it's always a party. I've put a lot of weight on the calendar this year, carefully observing mile-markers and symbolic numbers. I'd very much like to let that go, but I can't look at a date or a time without putting it in the context of some preceding event or commemoration. I'm using today, the Epiphany (I recognize the irony), to try to see things in front of me as new and unassociated. I need new memories.