Lonely Headlights - Dec. 24th

I know that Christmas Eve was many moons ago, but I never got around to posting this. Happy reading!

This is a season of firsts for me. The first time I spent the majority of Christmas Eve away from my family, the first time I was in charge of the music for one of the biggest masses of the year rather than just a participant, the first time I celebrated Christmas Eve mass in a church other than my one at home, the first time that I had to be an "adult" and "have my own life" on an important holiday.

Tonight, as you may have guessed, I had to, I mean got to, spend my afternoon and evening working up at my church in Collegeville. I knew this day was coming, as I had been told before I was even offered the job that Christmas Eve mass was my responsibility, but I didn't expect it to be so hard. I had avoided the thought of it up until late this morning, when I was still in my pj's, and the rest of my family was dressed nicely and headed down to Bloomington. I had a sad couple of hours home alone, and then I headed up to school to make 22 music binders, rehearse my choir for an hour, and then play piano for the pageant and the following mass.

The interesting thing was that it wasn't really that I resented having to be up there tonight. I was upset about missing one of my favorite gatherings of the year, sure, but I have come to love that parish and (most of) the people that are a part of it. In fact, when I reached the Abbey for rehearsal, I was so incredibly happy to be there, and at that point I realized it would have upset me to miss our mass even more than it upset me to be missing Christmas. I had the incredibly opportunity to prepare one of the "big" masses of the liturgical year; picking music, putting together a choir, and watching everything happen just as I had planned. It was a humbling experience, and I am proud to say that I got to do it.

After mass I was thanked over and over again by people I see every weekend and by people that I have never seen before. One of my professors attends this parish, and we have developed a special bond over the past eight years (he was one of my professors in the math program I did in high school, so he's known me for a long time). Tonight, he came over and hugged me as he always does, and told me how proud he was of the "beautiful woman I have become" and that it was bittersweet to him to see me as I am now and remember my high school self. That almost made me cry.

Driving home tonight, alone on a night that should have been spent with loved ones, was a little sad. There were lots of vehicles on the road, and they just got me to thinking. I wonder how many of them were with their loved ones. How many of them were headed home after spending the day enjoying the company of those that matter most. How many of their Christmas Eves were different this year; sadder and yet (hopefully) more fulfilling somehow. And I wonder how many of them were alone. How many were headed towards empty houses to await the arrival of someone who cared. How many of them felt a little lost, a little bereft.

To me, they were all just a set of headlights coming towards me as I made my way home to wait for my family. To me, it was a long and lonely drive, filled only with the company of other lonely headlights heading towards a destination forever unknown.