it's Christmastime...

It has been almost 2 months since I have written. I don't know how many people read my blog, but for those of you who do, I apologize. Sometimes I just feel like I do not have much to say... other times, I feel as if I have too much, there are too many thoughts jumbled around in my head that I can hardly make sense of them all long enough to get the words out on a page.
I'm home for Christmas right now, currently curled up in my warm, single bed, in my yellow and blue room. A room full of reminders of who I used to be... Michael W. Smith, D.C. Talk and Backstreet Boys posters still cling to the walls... stickers and little cards with sayings on them are haphazardly placed on the walls, in what was once a strategic manner I am sure. My mirror still holds pictures of old friends, the autographs of D.C. Talk and Jars of Clay... a picture of Enjolras from Les Miserables... my desk holds momentos from trips taken as a child with my family... little figurines of Mount Rushmore, Devils Tower, London Bridge... along with pictures from grad, a few dolls, stuffed animals... there is a list taped to my wall, beside my bed, with some things crossed off and some things not checked off... among the 'to do' list is 'become friends with myself'. I sheepishly notice that this is not crossed off...
Sometimes I forget who I used to be... I often have a difficult time figuring out how and when I transitioned from a shy little geek into the outgoing, outspoken fireball I am today, who dreams of the stage. I don't get it. I don't see it. I cannot clearly find that point. Maybe it doesn't exist. Maybe it was a combination of many different things... all melded together to form who I am today. I am sure this is it, as I am sure this is true for every other person on the planet. And yet... sometimes things happen that trigger something inside of me... and I feel like a 15 year old bashful little girl again. What makes me feel like this, you ask? It is always, forgive me, matters of the heart. It has happened yet again this week. I am 15 once more...
When people ask me if I am in a relationship, I generally laugh. I still have a difficult time realizing why anyone would want to be with me. I'm pig headed, stubborn, too focused on my non-existent career... I flip and flop between the idea of being in a relationship and not being in one... and I cannot decide which I prefer. For the first time in my life, I feel content to be single. I am happy where I am at. Focused, with goals. Yet sometimes things happen that make me want desperately to be in a relationship. To find that man. Recently, a very dear friend of mine got engaged. My heart is overflowing with love and joy for her. Unfortunately, soon after hearing this news, my fickle heart flipped on the vacant sign and I found myself longing for a relationship yet again.
It is with this attitude and mindset that I came home for Christmas, from Toronto, to my small town in Alberta. It is here that a year ago, a very tall, very handsome young man made me laugh. It was a small conversation we had. Not more than two or three sentences. But one that stuck with me throughout this past year. Because he made me laugh, a genuine laugh that warmed my soul. I did not speak of this little... intruige, if you will, to anyone. So it was, exactly a year later, in exactly the same spot, that this young man made me laugh again. This conversation was a bit longer... there was more to it. Everything was said and yet nothing at all. Laughter. I know little of him. A friend's older brother. Someone I have grown up with, and yet have never paid attention to. Someone whom I will not see again for another year. Someone whom I am too shy to get in touch with, because we have never really communicated, aside from these two short moments, each a year apart. And yet I am smitten... completely and utterly. There is no reason for this young man to like me. There is no reason for him to be attracted to me. I find it odd and a bit frustrating how matters of the heart work. How someone can obsess your mind so completely, when you know so little about them. How someones image and memory can stay so vividly in the back corners of your mind, to be carried around with you constantly, when you know without much doubt that he is not thinking of you at all. How frustrating the heart is.
Sadly, I go back to Toronto on the 6th. I will leave, having said nothing of this to him. Not even knowing how to get in touch with him even if I had the courage (which I do not). I will go on... holding this memory, this wrinkle in time, close to me... looking forward to and hoping for one more moment of laughter, in exactly a year from the last, in the exact same place, at the exact same time. Maybe next year I will have the courage to say more. Then again... maybe not.
Blessings and Merry Christmas!
Deena