Finding Your Christmas Tree: In which the Magic Princess is surprised

Christmas – 2009

Last week I had the opportunity to be a part of an interesting, productive, and exhausting workshop. At the end of the three days, our group presented to both our direct management group and senior leadership in the hospital. It was intimidating and wonderful. Work has been so very hard lately. This group gave me the flicker of hope I needed to keep at it a little while longer.

Still, it takes more than hope to get through the regular workday.  I sat in my car before work this morning, gathering strength and joy and mostly just trying not to cry.  Gathering my things, I headed to the elevator, taking just a moment to soak up the gorgeous view from the top of the garage.

“Isn’t it beautiful up here?”  A voice startled me.  Not just amy voice.  A senior leader voice. The kind with Chief at the front of her title.

“It is!”  I was not wearing my work badge yet and wasn’t sure she would recognize me.

We step into the elevator and I brace myself for five stories of small talk. Or silence.

“You all did a great job on Friday presenting.  Thank you for the effort you put in.”

What?? She took the time to tell me that?  My spirits were lifted, if a bit confused.

The workday began in a dizzy mess of catching up, fixing, returning messages.  The sort of busy that comes after you’ve been away from your desk for four days.  It felt impossible. Everything felt impossible.

And then the strangest thing happened. I walked past the free shelf and saw my Christmas tree.  The Christmas tree I’d bought with money I couldn’t really afford to spare when I was a student and clinicals felt insurmountable and Pablo and I had decided to not be married anymore and the smallish bears were so far away and it was Christmas and I was all alone.  I’d left it behind in the student house and now, out of the blue, it was sitting on the free shelf waiting for me.  A little whisper (shout?) from the Universe saying, “This too shall pass.”

I laughed as I saw the bent paper-clips used as ornament hooks.  The star was nowhere to be found.  But the green and blue and silver and purple ornaments were there.  My tree.

It rode home in my work bag and fits right in. Four and a half years later, my color preferences are still the same.  Some things remain strong, other things are just for a season. I am encouraged.  My tree!