The confessional creaked as Father Declan shifted in his seat. ‘It’s commendable that you want to help the people you love but have you considered you might be putting a lot on yourself here? You’re happy to shoulder the burden of others, but you have to allow them to help you carry yours. You can only take so much before you break.’
It was good advice, I just didn’t know how it could help me out of my current situation.
‘Tell me more about feeling stuck,’ he said. ‘What does that mean?’
The bright flickering possibility of telling him the truth dangled in front of me. There was a chance he’d believe me. He did work for the guy who sold the world on immaculate conception after all, although no matter how hard Yvonne Aylsford in Year Eleven tried to convince people that was what happened to her, no one believed her ever. Compared to some of the stuff that happened in the bible, my story wasn’t that much of a reach. And if he didn’t believe me, so what? We weren’t likely to bump into each other in Tesco any time soon.
‘It means, I’ve been stuck reliving the same day over and over,’ I said, relief pouring off me as I said the words out loud. ‘It doesn’t matter what I do, who I help, who I hurt, no matter how hard I try, I keep waking up on the very same morning as though nothing at all has happened.’
On the upside, he didn’t laugh.
Both sides of the confessional fell silent and I crossed my fingers, hoping he wasn’t texting someone to comeand take me away. After what felt like far too long for someone who did this for a living, he cleared his throat and I clung to the edge of my seat, waiting on his wisdom.
‘Life can feel like that sometimes, can’t it?’ he said, his voice packed with wisdom. ‘Like we’re on a hamster wheel, reliving the same day, repeating the same mistakes. And Christmas can be the worst of it, going through the motions, acting out the same rituals and traditions as though nothing has changed even if everything is different to the way it was last year. Sometimes all we want is someone to hear us and acknowledge our pain. I hear you, child, I hear you.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ I muttered under my breath. ‘I mean, thank you, that’s lovely. Good to know.’
It wasn’t as though I’d expected him to have the answer but a flat-out rejection of the concept was a little rich for someone who believed a man once turned water into wine yet didn’t want to hear a peep about a Christmas-related time loop. As hard-to-believe miracles went, mine was nothing compared to feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish. I couldn’t even make a meal for Manny out of that.
‘My advice is make the most of each moment, be present. I hope that’s given you something to think about.’
‘Surely has!’ I said, slapping my hands against my thighs, officially confirming we were done. ‘Right, I’d better let you get on. I’m sure the Christmas rush is about to start.’
‘There are only twenty-four homes in the village,’ he replied with a good-natured laugh. ‘I’ve got all the time you need.’
‘Time is the one thing I already have too much of,’ I said, opening the door and preparing to head back outinto the never-ending afternoon. ‘Merry Christmas, I hope you have a good one.’
‘Everything you learn today will help you tomorrow,’ he called after me. ‘Remember that.’
I paused outside the confessional, blinking up at the stained-glass windows.
‘But what if there is no tomorrow?’ I asked.
‘Tomorrow is nothing more than yesterday’s today. Think on it.’
I heard a gentle chuckle on the other side of the partition as I made my way up the aisle and out the front door.
‘Just what I needed,’ I muttered, bracing myself for the cold. ‘A bloody riddle.’
An hour later, I arrived back at the car, a small can of petrol kindly donated by a nervous-looking teenage boy in the very tiny petrol station on the edge of the village in one hand, and the second of two Snickers bars, also kindly gifted, in the other. I had hoovered the first one in three bites the moment it was in my hand and there was a good chance I’d eaten some of the wrapper as well but it was fine, probably good roughage.
Removing the petrol cap, I replayed my spiritual counselling in my head and wondered if perhaps Father Declan wasn’t the only one who had missed the point a bit. Admittedly, he didn’t jump on board with my time loop problem but I wasn’t really listening to his advice either. He was right, asking other people for help was something I found hard.
‘But I did ask for petrol and a Snickers,’ I said out loud, over the reassuring glug glug glug of the petrol going into the tank. ‘So I must be getting better.’
As much as I needed to work on checking in with myself, I definitely needed to work on checking in on other people as well. Just because they said they were OK, didn’t mean they were. I always said I was fine when I wasn’t, whether I was suffering with period pains or had spent three hours crying in a corner about the fall of western civilization, so I could hardly expect other people to be telling me the truth when they said everything was fine and dandy.
As for the rest of his advice, that was a bit trickier. Be present, live in the moment, that was all well and good for yoga instructors on Instagram but what about the likes of me? At the side of the road, the same three sheep I’d come across earlier kept a reproachful watch.
‘You probably know all about this living in the moment guff,’ I said, swinging the empty petrol can in my hand. ‘How does it work exactly? I thought we were supposed to make plans? I thought that was a good thing?’
They didn’t reply, but to be fair, I’d been extremely rude to them when we first met. Plus, they were probably too busy being present to acknowledge me. From what I could tell, ‘being present’ usually happened on the top of a mountain, not on the number 95 bus when you were weighed down by four pints of milk, a frozen chicken tikka masala and two massive boxes of Persil that were on special offer. Who wanted to be present for that?
Every part of my life looked like the wrong end of a bad deal. Iwasstuck, and not just in a calendar day, I was stuck in my life. Most people dug themselves into a groove at some point, but this wasn’t a groove, it wasn’t a rut or even a hole. I was more like a dog tied to a pole in the back garden and running around in circles. Thefaster I ran, the shorter the rope became, and now I was all snarled up with absolutely nowhere to go. As I chucked the empty petrol can in the back of the car and turned the key in the ignition, a grim realization dawned. I’d tethered myself to a life I wasn’t even sure I wanted and at no point had I stopped to ask myself why.
Until now.
I fastened my seatbelt with purpose, turned onThe Greatest Showmansoundtrack and pulled into the road. Getting stuck in an eternal Christmas until I could solve my family’s problems was one thing, but forcing me to reflect on my own life choices was quite another.