When all my friends from back home kept IM'ing me asking 'You coming home for Easter?' I sort of felt a twinge of sadness.

Nope. I can't, it's too far, I have too much work, it's too expensive and I wouldn't be back until too late on Sunday, or Monday, or just well, it wasn't really going to work. Fine, that's ok, I mean, it happens.

It's not like it's Christmas or something.

But then I feel like a big jerk, saying that, because the good little Catholic schoolgirl in me pipes up the old banter: Easter is an even more major holiday than Christmas in the Church. Silly secular Christmas, Easter is a real holiday that you ought to celebrate in your attempts to be more than just a secular person, stripping the meaning from all things festive.

I went to Church, but not until the 10 o'clock mass. The 9 am was just out of the question too early, same for the 11:30 (although I was up -- just not dressed and out, and all those good Church-going things). I hate the 5 on the principle that they sing lame, folksy music from the 70's that just makes me want to hurl. So the 10 it was -- the non-Eastery-feeling 10 at night mass.

My mother called me at 11 this morning to wish me a happy Easter, and I think because she felt bad. I felt bad too, and the moment the phone rang, I knew it was her and why she was calling. It made me sad.

"I made an Easter basket for you," she said. "It's sitting here with the others."

If things didn't seem really sad before, that was what put things over the top to just downright depressing. Great, so I have an Easter basket, sitting at home with all of my family, including my little brother who apparently didn't realize I wasn't coming home.

Not that I blame him, I mean, I'm not sure how much I realized fully I wasn't coming home either.

I know I don't talk about religion much, and I'm not always sure what I make of it all, but the fact remains that I am -- or at least have been and still identify myself as -- pretty religious. Not like super-religious, not religious in a really evangelical way, but religious in that quiet 'this-is-how-I-was-raised-and-I'll-feel-guilty-if-I-don't-but-I-believe-it-too' sort of way a lot of Catholics I know are.

I went out for Chinese food tonight, it was supposed to have been a bunch of us, but then one had relationship problems and another had a stat project and things sort of fell apart and just Dana and I went. As I ate my chicken lo mein, I forced myself to read my Chinese horoscope on the placemat to avoid crying. It just felt so emtpy. It wasn't Sunday Dinner (and by Sunday Dinner, I mean a large early-afternoon meal, in the dining room, with the nice linen tablecloth and some big meat dish like ham or lamb). It wasn't even brunch at the Sheraton (which my family opted for this year, so I guess there was no Sunday Dinner to be had anywhere anyway).

As I walked to mass, alone, in the rain, at ten o'clock, I couldn't help myself. I feel pretty stupid crying about not being home for Easter when I didn't really think I wanted to go anyway, and it's my own stupid fault that I didn't get more work done ahead of time so I could, and when there are much bigger, more imporatant problems in the world, but it bothered me. It felt really sad. Really empty.

Really not like Easter.

To try to not things on such an empty note, I will say church was consoling, and walking home in the rain, I encountered my hallmate Andy who was in a more pitiful state than I considering he had no umbrella and his dinner had consisted of two double cheeseburgers from what probably is in the running for the worst McDonald's in the world. Ever.

Not that I take joy in my neighbor's plight, I don't mean to imply that, but I just mean it was nice, I guess, to know that I wasn't alone in being alone. Anyway, Happy Easter, really.

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Posted by richard @ 04/16/2001 10:38 PM EST