An allegory

There's this house.

It's a beautiful, old house. But, it's not been perfectly maintained over it's many decades. The paint is pealing on the shutters. The brick front steps need cement.

Overall, it's a solid house, if not a little ragged looking on the outside.

I can see through the big front window. Inside, there's a large group of people, and they're mingling and talking with each other. 

Some are doing things: Cooking and baking and crafting and sewing. A few have glasses of beer or wine or whiskey.

All of their tasks seem to be slowly turning the ragged feel of the house into one of warmth.

While they seem happy, the people inside also seem stressed. You can see the worry lines on a few of their faces.

However, the front door is open, and while a few people glance at that door, no one walks toward it. It might be tough sometimes, but it seems like everyone inside the old house is working together.

And I'm outside, looking in, describing what's happening, but feeling like I'm not doing a very good job of it.

I want to be inside, doing work, being part of making the house warm.

But like it's been for almost all of my life, my place is outside. Looking in.

And so I keep looking.

Is this real?

I had off Monday. 

My company, Journal Multimedia, parent of Central Penn Business Journal, was closed to observe Presidents Day. 

Before she left Friday, my boss at the business journal actually told me, "Remember not to come in on Monday."

I thought for a moment that this couldn't be real. 

I'm not going to lie, as a daily newspaperman my entire professional career, this feels … strange. 

This is the first time since I was a teenager, if not longer, that I've had off because the day was a federally recognized holiday (other than Christmas and New Years, and that's only because The Evening Sun didn't publish on some of them).

I've had off holidays, but it's been through a quirk of scheduling. Otherwise, I've had to talk to folks picnicking on Memorial Day, or hunting Easter eggs on Easter Sunday. 

Or, sometimes, I've had to call the coroner about a deadly crash on Thanksgiving. 

A day off with the rest of the 9-5 crowd is a change. 

Like it's a change for my old boss, Marc, to move from his job as editor in Hanover back to the main offices in York. 

Or for my friends, Caitlin and Brendan, to welcome their first child in August. 

It's the one lesson that's always been hard for me to learn: Change is the only constant. 

It never gets a day off. 

Setting sail

The wind is blowing fiercely as I write this. 

The cliché would be to say, as the final 12 hours of 2013 tick down, that it is blowing out the last of the old year. 

Globally and locally, it's been a year filled with joy and misery. Every year is, of course. We always seem to forget that. 

The local good and bad:

I celebrated my second anniversary with Jennifer. I celebrated the birth of my daughter. I bought a new car. 

But I lost my grandfather. Relationships have grown strained, either by time or distance, or some other factor. And I feel like I'm not living up to my potential; like I'm not me. 

Of course, there's little I could do regarding Poppy. But those last two rest on me. 

The wind might be blowing me along, but it's up to me to set the sails and take the rudder.

Here's the part where, as I've done almost every year of my life, I resolve to make the next year better than the last. 

Before I do that again, though, I wonder: How can I guide the ship if I don't feel I have any navigational guides? I'm scared of where I'm going and where I'll end up. 

Yes, philosophers, religions, etc. offer routes, or compasses or star charts. 

I've followed those in some form or another to this point. Can I trust I'm on the right course? I suppose that's what faith is, and mine is being tested. 

Maybe Sophie is picking up on my wavelength: She has started to scream when Jen or I leave her alone for even a second. Like she's immediately lost without us there. 

I don't want Sophie to feel the way I do. But neither Jen nor I have found a solution. 

Perhaps my answer lies with Sophie's. The world is vast and there's much to explore. 

We're not lost. The wind hasn't blown us off course. 

It's OK to be scared. 

The world is round.