When I think of New Years' and school, I always think of that giant parade we had in the snow, it seems so inherently like us to do something like that. But it's only happened once, that I know of. This year, I won't even be on campus for New Years--I wasn't for Christmas. I was with June's family, missing my family and school, because the alternative would have been for her to miss hers, and she did that already at Thanksgiving.
June's family doesn't quite celebrate Christmas, which sometimes makes me wonder why we can't spend Christmas with my family (who do) instead, but I can see why she doesn't want to miss her non-Christmas, either. It's this low-key, unofficial, non-religious day with a big, yummy breakfast and everyone getting and giving little stocking-stuffer type things with everyone else. It's lovely. It's family time. And I seem to be welcome. I could see learning to miss this myself, if one year I couldn't go.
Is this what growing older is just like? The more people and places you
connect with, the more you wish you were somewhere else no matter where
you are?
June's family was similarly low-key about New Years last year--we all just stayed up to toast at midnight with Champagne in nice glasses, then we went to bed--but I hear they're planning a party this year. I'm looking forward to it.
And I'm thinking about things on campus, about the party they're gearing up for, and about which of my friends will be on campus then and which will not.
I'm thinking about something Allen said to me the other day.
June and I were on campus for Yule, of course, before leaving for a week and a half with her parents (including travel time--it's a long way), and in the evening, before the masters withdrew again to wherever it is they go outside of the school year, I asked Allen something about whether he was going to Charlie's for Christmas. And, I guess, there was an edge to it when I said it. I didn't mean there to be.
The thing is that I've always wanted to be part of what these people have, and there's a sense in which I always feel excluded. There are things students aren't allowed to join, there is Charlie being prickly and growling to keep others--sometimes me--and there is the fact I'm just not as close to them as they are to each other. I'm not really being excluded or rejected, but somehow it just feels like I am. Allen would say I'm being emotionally needy. And sometimes it shows.
And Allen can always tell.
I said whatever I said and he grinned at me fondly.
"I'm always amused," he said, "That you yearn so deeply for that which you already have."
No comments:
Post a Comment