That was a difficult Christmas. I say was, because, it is past. Christmas truly used to be a two week ordeal. This year it was two nights, and both were hard – for different reasons. The difference between something difficult and something impossible, is knowing that others are right there along with you in military-like duty to be there for each other.
Maybe writing about your difficulties online isn’t attractive, poetic, professional, or necessary, but I enjoy doing it. Perhaps it will change when I have a hundred student’s snooping, and administration supporting me all the way through to the finish line. (When I was student teaching I deleted a plethora of blog posts because I thought they were incriminatingly personal, which they may have been – everything to do with my love life was deleted – but in the end I just want to work somewhere that accepts me for who I am.) I believe I have something worth sharing, whatever it is this year.
Christmas eve morning was very hard for no reason. It was just very empty, and I fill emptiness with mourning. In It’s a Wonderful Life (The movie my mom watched on repeat the last two days she was alive), George Bailey wears a black band around his arm to show he is mourning. I wanted to wear one this year, but I’m not much of a tailor. Maybe I should ask someone.
Christmas with your family is both very fun and bad.
Just because I’m not afraid to share things that are personal doesn’t mean that I wish to. I wasn’t mad at anybody this year, seriously. I’m not even mad at myself this year. Family is an imperfect people, but it’s not my place to change the world. The rest is history.
Ben Bonkoske 