A Different Christmas

This Christmas feels different to me (or perhaps differently). Gone—as usual—is the excitement. I think the last time I felt that was in 2003. It's Christmas, and I'm a Charlie Brown, searching for some other meaning. Not some meaning lost; some meaning found. I have found it, but I do not have it. I am trying to make it my own.It's been bittersweet. Incredibly so. The end of this semester has; nothing has turned out as I wanted it to. That should upset me, I guess. I began the semester with a goal, and I failed that. But I'm still working at it. It has morphed so much, it has come to consume me. It had been one fleeting moment of awe and I have been living in it since August. We all want our Christmas miracle; this year, I know what it is. And miraculous it would be.

To whom that my lips have uttered those words, I meant them. But when I feel them today I just worry and fret, because to say them now is to mean them, and hope they're heard, hope they're internalized, hope that they're known, and hope that they resonate somehow, for it is all I can say. I wish no more than to mean them, and to make them my own.

But for me to say them, you must listen. Listen, for now I speak: what once was a quest, a game, has shown me many things and given me a life I can't hasten. You must know that when I think, when I say those words, they are from the joy you bring.

Juliana AntoninusComment