What it Feels Like to Re-Evaluate Everything You Like After Christmas

I've not had a tangible Christmas gift in years. This isn't some hippie rant about how we should just give love instead of gifts, but when you hear about someone being trampled at a Wal-Mart for like the umpteenth time, maybe it is time to give a little love.

So, retail was bad this year, boo-hoo. I wasn't all that bad this year. I drank, I ate, I pooped, I puked and I still love Christmas cookies.

I didn't depend on a Christmas bonus compiled by relatives and handed out in old shoe boxes at a family gathering. I didn't ask for a dancing Santa, a TV or a lamp that's overpriced.

I didn't ask for my family to be there to greet me at the door or fill glad containers with stuffing that I've never really liked.

I didn't ask for anything. And I didn't because it's sort of disgusting.

Before Christmas, I had a friend that wanted an engagement for the 25th. Nothing else. Good great and dandy, and engagement.

I don't think the person needing to give the engagement sees the full picture. Sure, it's engagement now and then years of Christmas freebies and foul-ups.

You hear someone say, "all I want for Christmas is you," is worse than when you hear some one say, "the n-word." They're lying and acting like they are not responsible for their actions because they can disguise it with the beginning of itself.

If I'm all you want for Christmas, doesn't that mean every Christmas and lifetime to come, or are you going to go ballistic when you don't get the puke colored drapes from World Market next year?

And I'm putting what I've accumulated in perspective. I never want anything for Christmas. It's just a day; another day with crazy cultural innuendos attached to it in the late twentieth century that causes many people to flip the fuck out.

I have many great things. I have a roof. I have a great life. I even have a pool and a computer to write on. I bought them all on different days and didn't take mind to the fact that it wasn't the 25th of December when I bought them.

Everything I have felt special when I bought it because it was. It was priced, planned, gifted and gracious in the middle of August as it was the day after Thanksgiving.

Why it's so important to have something given to you on Christmas, well, I'll never really understand.

What it Feels Like to Look Outside From the Inside and Think, "I want to do that, but I can't."

In 22 years of living, I've had four major surgeries to repair my knee, arm and clean various infections.

One month ago, I had my last major knee surgery. It doesn't hurt. It just feels the worst.

I look at the mountains I used to climb every Friday and look away quickly with a slight frown on my zitted face. Poor me, I think. Poor, poor me.

There are a few crazy parts of me that become selfish and act like I'm never going to heal. There are parts of me that act like I don't have access to the top of the line exercise equipment, physical therapists, surgeons and drugs.

Then, there are parts of me that know I'll be fine, but can't wait for that moment.

Anytime someone jogs by me on the street while talking on a cell phone, or rides a bike past me without wearing a helmet, weary of ruining some daily hairstyle, I feel like breaking their legs.

I feel like giving that person a taste of what so many people go through.

It isn't because I'm bitter. I've thought about this. I don't envy the people who can do these things, and I understand that I'm only seeing them in one context, but I know that many of these people have never experienced real pain.

How can I say that? Right. Let me explain:

I can do anything I want because I'm young, capable, educated and strong. I knew that immediately after my doctor told me I wouldn't walk for a long time when I was sixteen years old.

And I'm not turning into a motivational douche-bag either. I'll never be that preacher.

Anyway, when any person hears someone with any sort of knowledge tell them something sounding almost sadistic about their own human condition, their real human starts to come out.

I couldn't see any light, I didn't think breakfast tasted any better the next day but I did identify with a lifestyle that I never knew existed. I felt like I knew why so many of my capable human buddies wasted days on a couch in front of a screen with a controller in their hands. I felt like anyone who got the ass end of life handed to them since they were born were more capable and smart than I ever could be.

I felt like I'd been given a chance to exploit a life I never knew I had.

All those friends I have in Kenya, all those girls I lived with in Guatemala, all those kids that chased my truck in Uganda–at least, a lot of them, don't let me be too general–knew the life they had and would seize any opportunity to exploit it the way every human should.

But, a lot of the time, they can't. Don't worry. It's not because joggers talk on cell phones or people ride motorcycles without helmets. There are a billion reasons why everyone is different and a billion different forces as to why everyone isn't on top.

And everyone knows, somewhere, that they can be on top of whatever it is they need to be on top of. And it feels like looking outside from the inside and imagining what you would do if you were able to be in the mountains where you feel most human, most capable, most ingenious, most certain that you can charge your condition with the strength you didn't know you had until someone told you that you won't be doing what you love for a long time.

What it Feels like to be at the Forefront of Something

I just finished a lecture with Shailagh Murray, the Washington Post reporter who followed Obama's campaign since its conception.

That was cool.

But, interestingly enough, I learned something. Surprise. Learned.

Right now, well, if I had followers, I would be at the forefront of journalism. Maybe.

I think sometimes that I'm an alright writer. I really try to be. I'm always on top of things. I try to background most of my stuff. I keep up with the times. I know where to look for relevant information. My spelling is okay. And so is my right click finger.

And my writing makes me important. My education makes me important. It doesn't make me desirable. Not yet.

I need my idea.

She said something interesting tonight. Sheilagh said, "We are just talking about what to do; where we're going."

Amazing. Thousands of journalist were laid off today and some of the biggest news organizations in the country are just talking about what to do; where they're going.

Well, I have news too. As a student, a writer and future professional: I don't know where you're going.

How much can I really do when there's just a screen in my face and letters at my fingertips? I guess that I can do quite a bit. I'm writing right now.

To some, I'm just writing shit. I'm just rambling. This isn't art. This isn't journalism. This isn't anything but a public diary that someone has yet to look at. Just another one.

But what if someone were to look at this tomorrow, tonight, or in the next five minutes and think, "I like this." Would I change? Would I realize that my forefront idea might be working–that it might be materializing?

That would be something. I could change my whole shit repertoire to a piece full of journalistic integrity and important layout of public insight.

But, first, I need someone to read what I've written. It is shit.

It won't be for long.