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Gather round for a Yuletide tale from my senior year of college.
(Or don’t. It’s not like you’re paying for this).
(Or don’t. It’s not like you’re paying for this).
First semester that year was a rough time. Things had gotten bizarrely contentious between myself and a professor, and it had the potential to derail my plans to graduate on time. I had picked the wrong fight and was getting a terrifying lesson in consequences.
Then a friend jumped in front of a subway train. Someone I was just kind of getting to become buddies with. Our entire circle of friends was shell shocked for months.
Then something ugly happened between my roommates and myself. Not gonna get into it, except to say that to this day I have not buried the hatchet.
To top it all off, late in the semester, my next door neighbor cheated on her boyfriend with me. I, of course, was the last to know. It’s hard to express how soft-hearted I was back then, or how humiliating this felt.
My 21st birthday came and went and I didnt even tell anyone because, well, you know how depression is.
I spent most of December hiding in the library. My memories of that time are very lonely, but I also remember a rare sense of safety there.
During finals week, a random girl stopped by the desk I was at - it was pretty much “my desk” by that point - and asked if I could watch her bag while she stepped out. I said I would, and thought nothing of it.
Fifteen minutes later, she leaned over my desk, placed a Hershey Kiss on the page of the textbook i was reading, smiled, and softly whispered “Merry Christmas.”
It never even crossed my depression-ravaged brain that she was “giving me a kiss”. I was in a FOG, and didn’t have the capacity to receive it as much more than a desperately needed dose of kindness (...and I wish she knew how much that still mattered.)
Anyway, sometimes the holidays can be rough, especially after a bad year. So be nice to one another. And if you find that some random chick does some sweetheart flirting with you, for god’s sake try and take notice. Trust me, that girl ain’t gonna wait around for Sad Library Boy.
