As the holiday season falls upon us, I’ve been having a lot of wholesome holiday fun with my friends. We’ve been decorating our dorm lounge with Christmas lights and cut-out paper snowflakes, and playing Christmas music any chance we get. It’s caused me to do a lot of reflecting on my life, and where I was—both physically and mentally—this time last year versus this time now. The changes feel drastic, both personally and with the environment and people around me. The dead air—the space between things—that used to feel so empty and uncertain, now is filled with so much love and promise for the future. The events that occurred over the past year or so to lead me here were such a whirlwind, but even so, I wouldn’t change a thing. Getting to this point in time might have felt like trying to untangle a strand of Christmas lights, but it was worth it, because nothing is as beautiful and makes you feel fuzzy inside quite like Christmas lights do when you finally get to string them up and plug them in.

The Space Between

Christmas lights twinkle
Strewn around our common room
Filling the space between our laughs,
Our thoughts,
Our breaths,
With holiday cheer.

Last Christmas didn’t feel like Christmas.
Home alone,
Friends nearby together,
But home alone.

I shopped and wrapped and played traditional Christmas music
From my phone,
The same phone where I saw them all
Together, but without me.
And so nothing worked.
The feeling I love so much about this time of year
Was absent.

Absent like my being from that college campus
Absent like my friends from my hometown
Absent like the security I used to feel
In knowing I’d have people that would never leave…
Because they did.

But this year the lights fill the spaces
Between our laughs and thoughts and breaths,
And the paper snowflakes that glisten with childhoods brought back to life
Hang between my smiles
And her smiles
And his smiles
And their smiles,
Between the memories we’re making
Together.

We sit on the floor
And drink hot cocoa
And it warms my insides
Like the sparks of things in common,
The flames of these new friendships,
Little fires singeing marks in my soul that will never leave,
And turning to ash all those who’ve past betrayed me

And sometimes I am still alone
But there are always friends nearby,
Sitting under the lights
And the snowflakes
And the memories and laughs and thoughts and breaths
That fill the space in between.
So never really alone.
And Christmas feels real again.