Colin Sheridan: In pursuit of progress, not perfection

I reckon we all spend these few days of pensive purgatory doing the same thing. Reflecting. Ruminating. Reorganising our minds

I will write a book next year. Maybe two. I don’t know who will publish them, nor who will want to read them.

By now, the waistbands have been adjusted and the family wills have been redrawn. Christmas, the great emotional equalizer, is over. If you’re reading this, congratulations, you have survived it. Anything that has been said or done in anger over the last few days should be forgiven, Hunter Biden style. You were not of sound mind, so don’t give yourself a hard time. The pressure of getting home, of buying gifts, of seeing people you hadn’t seen probably since the Christmas before, each one brings with it a trigger point of emotion that leaves you vulnerable. The ad-people don’t sell you that version of the holiday. They pitch the joyous journey, not the often-difficult destination.

Christmas came early in our house this year, but not in the way that you’d expect or hope. A family funeral meant a return to the homeplace, and a reckoning with childhood and nostalgia that was unexpected and emotional in a way that only these things can be. What is it about burials in winter? About decades of the rosary spoken into malfunctioning microphones. About seeing a girl you once held hands with in secondary school. About birds fluttering on bare trees. About dirt and the cold wet earth. About six pairs of shoulders carrying a wooden box, struggling to keep step. About meaningful nods across open graves to a fella you hadn’t seen in twenty years.