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On the last day of last year, I recognized a pattern of two camps. People who were to go out, and people who were to stay in. Because I tend to only go out roughly 100 times in most given years, I thought I’d get outside of my comfort zone. And boy will I tell ya, I still think I can dance.
Of course I was home by roughly 1 because I don’t afterparty the way I used to. Gosh, elderly old me in my mid-twenties. But at least I wasn’t in bed by 11:30. When I got home I began my annual bewitching hour reflection on year past. There is something of an empty feeling after being with a hundred people, and that night being no different than the other 363.
I will relay some of my anecdotes, although I will preface that this one was roughly 1/3 shorter than my usual yowling at the moon:
An insignificant existence looms in my room that has been empty except for one occupant for the past whenever and will be until the next whenever.
I write a lot about how beautiful the language is of those who die prior to the afterparty. An odd thing to aspire to. It is not so much that I am complacent with life, although much more so than I was when I was twenty-three.
People can say they don’t care what people think until the cow comes home or the crow comes to roost, but I do. I wish the world knew me for who I was. I’m more like that nowadays than I’ve been for the past decade. I wished I was loved for who I am.
My life had meaning in it for about 10 years. It was a woman. It really was. You can’t force love, make someone love you, or love someone you don’t, even if the whole world depends on it. My life lost purpose.
Well, well, look who’s decided to thumb through my thoughts. I do inherently believe that someone who does not hide away all of their secrets – best to be kept for themselves, but instead shares their mid-twenties wisdom for the world to know – makes us jest with progressive insight. What a delight.
My first note will be the underwhelming emptiness that I alone feel, along with the rest of the off-webbers. There is something about how uncompelling, nor fulfilling all the most-important relationships are in my life after the evidently superior holiday to rejoice in such a present. I think that not being able to run for the next few weeks (and the past few days) also plays a part. This is it.
I am lucky to have approximately a hundred close friends and relatives. When I was in college, and/or when I moved back to Chicago, I had maybe twelve total. So many people who care – about me! And I them?
I feel as though all relationships are passing. Sometimes sharing a good meal at a fast food restaurant that lasts an hour longer than it should, is just as important as people you see every week for a long while (out of enjoyable obligation). But the weeks will end, and the people will go. Or I will.
I miss people who haven’t left yet, because I know I won’t know them ten years hence. I miss people I loved, because I don’t know when I’ll see them again. I suppose this next anecdote really is one I thought as one of my best thoughts – but if I open with a sentiment about sharing wisdom, I ought to stay true to my word.
Love is not past tense. I did not loved you. I do not loved you. I love you. Whoever, and whenever we may pass one another or part. Maybe I don’t know everyone. And I certainly don’t know everything (I know I wouldn’t like it if I did), but I love where our roads cross, with the click of a clock, whether for a summer, a year, or an hour. I am only alone as I am with no one. Goodbye again, hello.
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 is the author of two novels, Spoon in the Road, and Carolina, Colorado, California. He is also the author of two collections of short stories, Ten Zen by Ben, and Eleven Stories for 11:11. He lives in Chicago, where he likes to take walks.
B. A, M.A.T.