Hello darkness my old friend, your busy nights are (almost) at an end

Walking the Beat

No politics on this one, folks, I promise. 'Tis not the season for it. For much of this week, I had been planning in my head how I would pair up this article with a second round of predictions for tomorrow's historic "Brawl of the Wild" rematch, with my contribution for once not being played for laughs but instead as a way to place my fandom on the line. I'd had a lot of thoughts about how much more interesting FCS football has become than the mess that is the FBS, with the emphasis on the last two letters.

Yet by midweek those thoughts were gone, swept up like so much dust and leaves and debris as Mother Nature once again showed who's the boss, and it sure isn't Tony Danza – and that, dear readers, is where I truly show my age. In its place had been a much older reference to how the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, intermixed with thoughts on how once again we are resilient through the storm, be it natural or metaphorical. But even that, too, went awry as yet again I missed the mark of my ambitions for these pages, as the limits of time, space and those pesky little human needs like sleep caused those thoughts, too, to be lost. And so I'm left with that – with loss, and with it the juxtaposition of loss with the "most wonderful time of the year," which just so happens to be arriving at the darkest time of the year, at least in the northern hemisphere anyway. 

Bringing the light into the darkness is the whole point of course (hence the upcoming Blue Christmas as reported on Page 3), but that isn't always easy to accept especially when this time of year often accompanies loss – or reminders of those losses. It's easy to dismiss that light, or overlook or to acknowledge but soon forget the overtures of others who are attempting to bring a little bit of that light in. As painful as the loss itself is, or the memories of loss, there's a different kind of pain involved in accepting that light. It feels undeserved, or a disservice to the memories or even, if one has over the years has built up a calloused heart from that pain and allowed onseself to become a Scrooge (or a Grinch, who's way more popular these days) as I know I for one am in the high-risk demographic of eventually doing so, simply to scorn it. 

Holding on to loss, to pain, to regret, to turmoil, to the darkness becomes like holding onto a talisman of sorts, or maybe like a beloved friend, one that will never leave, and in so doing it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. The more you hold onto it, the more and more it becomes all you have, and then at that point it takes a Christmas miracle – be it one with three ghosts or three wise men – to break through. 

But, like Leonard Cohen sang, there's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. May it get into your life. 

Oh, and to bring it full circle, whoever wins tomorrow, and whoever loses tomorrow, I will support you both. (My favorite NFL team having both a Cat and a Griz on the roster makes it a lot easier to say so.)