Santa baby, hurry down the chimney tonight.

With one week until the Christmas holidays it is only expected for one to become excited. The past few years, although they were the happiest years of my life, I found that I was a bit of a Grinch. It bothered me how big Christmas was. I disliked the fact that it was all anybody talked about and that you simply could not escape it. Everywhere you turned there were either big red ribbons, seasons greetings, or trees decorated with colourful lights. If anybody were to say anything about the holidays I just rolled my eyes at them. I am hoping this year will be different. Surprisingly, there are many things I enjoy about the holidays. For an example, I absolutely can’t contain myself when I walk into Starbucks for the first time once they have decorated for Christmas. I love that the menu changes and that the cups turn red. I love the bundled up couples who are trying to get warm after their walks downtown. I love the festival of lights along the water front of my hometown. I love the excuse for baking obscene amounts of cookies that the holiday provides for me. I love the smiles I get when I give them away. I love spending time thinking of the perfect gifts for my friends and loved ones. I love seeing there faces when they open whatever it is. I love the moment on Christmas morning when my mom finally goes to open my card and everyone says “get the tissues!” I love the way my house smells like cinnamon apples. I love the way people are more kind around the holiday season, more giving, and more forgiving. I love the way the holidays gives me a way to reach out to those I’ve lost, and long for. Most importantly I love spending time with my family, and the fact that we do everything the same, year after year. Every year we have the exact same breakfast and the exact same dinner, together. This year I will not be a Grinch. I will not wish for something I did not receive. I will not mourn for those who are no longer with me, and wish to spend the holidays with. I will think of all the things that I love about the holidays, that I never thought I did. 

I wish everyone a wonderful holiday and a Happy New Year. 

What Was Lost

What do you do at a time when you are suppose to find yourself, you do the complete opposite? You’ve lost yourself. You look in the mirror and realize you don’t recognize the person looking back at you anymore. Your dreams have changed. Your values have changed. Almost everything that made up who you are, you realize suddenly isn’t there anymore. How did this happen? And how do you go back?

When you move away from home and go away to college you are suppose to find yourself. You are suppose to mature, and everything is meant to fall into place. What happens to those who move away from home and everything falls to pieces? You have this dream, a dream of making a difference in the world, and suddenly you back down because you no longer think you have what it takes. Is it because you lost the person who believed in you, the one that made you want to be a better person? Or is it because you simply changed your mind? Was that dream ever really apart of who you were, or were you that person because of somebody else?

What really makes us who we are? What defines us? Is it what we dream or is it who makes us dream it? Do we ever really know who we are, or are we constantly searching? Can we ever find what was lost?