next year at this time

When my sister and I were little, we used to love to lie underneath the Christmas tree at nighttime. We’d gaze up into the maze of green, the soft glow of the twinkle lights illuminating our little faces. Our favorite game to play was “Next year at this time,” where we’d talk about what we might be doing or saying a year from then. “A year from now, I’ll be in junior high!” … “A year from now, I might have a boyfriend!” … and so on and so on. Most of the time we’d giggle and gasp at our predictions, and other times we’d sit in silence; contemplating “change” and how it always happened to find us no matter how hard we tried to elude it.

To this day I can’t help but feel a whimsical sense of calm when gazing up at my Christmas tree...a welcome constant in an ever-changing world.