2001-12-24 - 4:12 AM
Christmas Eve (Fake Plastic Trees)
Ever just feel inexplicably weird?
It's Christmas Eve, and I just don't feel right. I'm trying so hard right now, trying to figure out a way to explain how I feel. I mean, have you ever just felt like the world was doing circles around you, and you're just sitting on its axis? The world is spinning; you stay in the same spot. It's a strange phenomenon, let me tell ya.
Maybe the lack of snow contributes to this odd feeling - maybe the lack of holiday spirit prevents the snow from falling, who knows? All I know is, the snow is missing, the days of hoping for a snow day are long gone. Waking up to the lavendar sky, listening attentively to the radio jockey, hoping to hear your school get called - you can sleep in, watch your cartoons, play in the snow. The snow is missing, those days are missing - and I'm slowly becoming this stagnant mound of nostalgic depression, missing everything that seems to be missing from me and my world.
The ornaments on my tree are different to me. The star at the top is where the angel used to be. Things just aren't the same.
Maybe we're conditioned into feeling less of the Christmas spirit as we grow older. In elementary school, your classrooms were filled with Christmas-y things, reminders that you were in the month of December. In high school, there was much less of that - but still, there was a reminder here and there for the taking. By the time you hit college, you get so wrapped up in finals, buying presents, going to parties, keeping up with this fast-paced place, that we forget what month it is. December usually doesn't hit us until the third week. We then know it's December, but it's just another month to us now. Things don't hit us until Christmas Eve, and we realize what we've become, what we almost forgot. Then a few days later, we realize the year that went by, what we regret, what we would change. We sip back the champagne as we struggle to recall, what exactly are we celebrating for.
It's a New Year coming up. A new year - we start from scratch. The chalkboard gets erased, and it's ready to be filled up again. We have the chalk - we fill it up with what we want to. Just make sure you're proud of it, or else, at the end of the year, when you're erasing the board again - you don't cry.
I'm sitting next to my Christmas tree. I just turned on the lights, in hopes it'd make me feel more like a kid again. But really, all this sitting in the dying in-and-out fades of my twinkling Christmas tree lights, is making me feel morose and saddened beyond all belief. I could almost feel a tear building up behind my face; I might be at the point where if I blink, it'll fall. You know how it is, and if you don't, you're not alive. Trust me.
I could remember playing the old 45 - The Chipmunks Christmas Album. I think that was way before they became Alvin & The Chipmunks. Damn those lead singers. I could remember losing myself in the world of toys - unattended, as my mother did the rest of her Christmas shopping. I could remember myself, my siblings, and the neighborhood kids - greasing up hubcaps and tankering up our sleds, ready to bullet ourselves down the hill next to my house. I could remember snowball fights and the tunnels we made from my front door to the street, in the six feet of snow we had that one year. I could remember it all.
I could.
But I don't think age will let me.
