Tonight, my roommates and I will drink eggnog – spiked with rum and
whiskey – and we will put up our Christmas tree.

All day I’ve been trying to remember where my childhood ornaments are.

My mother gave them to me in an old lunch box some years ago.
I misplaced them someplace between here and there
But they’re somewhere.
I know that they’re somewhere.

I can’t stop trying to figure it out.

In that same way,
I cling to the memories,
Something in my heart always aches about the holidays.

But tonight, my roommates and I will drink eggnog – spiked with rum
and whiskey – and we will put up our Christmas tree.

I’ve never been able to handle lifes’ changes like a well-adjusted adult,
But I put on a good front.
Most of the time.

I ache – tender, in the way that I ache – for moments in time,
Things the way they were, not are.
A gross cycle because I wind up berating myself
For always clinging to that which no longer exists.

My family and I – some other Christmas – putting up our Christmas tree.

The holidays remind me of the moments
I used to exist in but never reflected on because
I was too young to understand the aches and pains of nostalgia.
Still, I bet I don’t know the least of it.

So tonight, my roommates and I will drink eggnog – spiked with rum and
whiskey – and we will put up our Christmas tree.

I will try to be present.
I will likely forget.

In that same way, I’ll exist on, drift further,
Misplacing memories somewhere between then
And now,
But they’re somewhere,
And I don’t know if I will ever stop trying to figure it out.

But I do know, I like drinking eggnog – spiked with rum and whiskey