Christmas 2008

I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.

For a decade now I found this trite, sentimental claptrap . Just part of the over-capitalized bullshit that mutilated my pristine memories of the classic childhood Christmas. At best it earned a scoff but mostly it played unacknowledged. Part of the soundtrack to something puerile. Something to be endured for three months than thrown aside to be picked up by a lonely garbage man still walking the beat while the rest of the world stays warm. A bland aesthetic experience shoved into a month of bland experiences, appearance makings, and super-structure demanded activities. Yet here I am, freshly twenty-four years old, humming this song under my breath and holding back tears as I speed walk to teach the disconnected children of the South Korean elite.

Cheers, reader, to my first Christmas away from home.

I sit here with my rattling cough. I am not the first of my DNA do spend Christmas in this nation. I had a great-uncle who was here sixty-some years ago. But he was a lot further north. And I'm sure he'd love to trade Christmases with me. Clutching an M1 in a ditch probably isn't as fun as moping on a laptop.

I believe the technical term for it is “taken for granted.” After such reliability those relationships that were so important to me became important for me. Like the mountains around me in this growing nation, I thought they'd be there to mark who I am forever. Sure, telling my Godmother I wanted to be Jewish because I'm old school was fun, but I didn't know that it got me through the year. I didn't know the astounding growth spurts of my younger cousins made for such gripping information. I didn't know Christmas actually meant something.

And here comes the reflection.

What will I come home to? A year is a long time, especially now. As my friends grow older and gain more direction they will scatter across the country. Some will stay but more will realize the Nebraskan dream of leaving home. Entering this wide world and roaming for a while. Who will go where and will they remember me? And if they do will they want to see me? As usual the future remains hazy.

But more importantly, what did I leave behind? So many friends, I tried my best to see them all.

As a form of therapy I hop onto interlink. They have live webcams there that update every fifteen seconds. Home looks beautiful. The snow covers everything. The cameras aren't wonderful but it looks like Christmas. Like I could reach out and touch it. The life I made for myself. Google Lincoln, Ne and put something as a background. There's a one for 27th and South. I can see a corner of the gas station I spent so many hours at.

If they miss me now it won't last.