Christmas. Did I forget about Christmas? There’s something about being a college student that ruins Christmas. Maybe it’s the hellish stress of finals one week before the blessed day. Every year it seems like I completely forget about Christmas until the day of. I don’t have Christmas carols running through my head (which could be a good thing), I’m not eating Christmas cookies, and I don’t even notice the Christmas lights. Sure, there’s Christmas programs going on, and every TV show has had their Christmas special. But it just doesn’t seem like Christmas. I’ve even exchanged a few presents already, and I don’t have the slightest clue that Christmas is next week. Maybe I’ve lost that childlike giddiness that makes December the longest month of the year. And maybe the hype that’s been building since Halloween is a bit much. I have to admit, I’ve had my fill of clever commercials that use Santa Claus in a new and creative way.

Is Thanksgiving break over already? And just when I had completely forgotten all my projects, assignments, papers, and tests. And was it a time of thanks? I’m not so sure. I felt like I was eating and running, eating and running. After my sophomore year of college home became less and less like home each time I came back. Now I realized it would be one of the last times I’ll actually be home for an extended period of time (so I was only home for four days, compared to the 36 hours I’ll be home for Christmas, that’s an extended period). In less than a month I’ll have my own place called home. I won’t have to move anymore and cram my stuff in the back of my pickup and drive home at the end of the semester. I’ll already be home. Which makes my last time at home a little frenzied, hectic, and sad–if I would have slowed down enough to notice.

Softly falling; covering the green grass, the bare trees, the parked cars. You can see it in the street lights, blowing at angles in the wind–but still softly falling, coating the landscape. It’s 2 a.m. and everyone but the night crew have gone home. The streets are dark and quiet, a lone set of tire prints guiding the way.

I smile, thinking of her’s. This is why I’m getting married in December: snow.

The rain falls softly outside, pittering against windshields and sidewalks, making things damp but not wet. I tried to write today, tried to use what talent I have to explain a situation on the other side of the planet–many miles of winding road, many more miles of open ocean, and many more miles of road away. What can I say of second hand reports from this distant place? Second hand reports, second hand facts, second hand lies. It’s hard to know who to believe when you have so many different stories. But you see the pictures, you see the dying children. And how do you put it down in just the right words? You don’t want to overwhelm anyone. Perhaps that’s just the idea. But you have to do it in a way that works. A way that explains the severity and the difficulty of the situation. It’s not easy to convince people that their government lies–or at least twists the truth. You just sound like a crackpot. Some things are just big. Maybe a little too big. The best I can do is shine wavering flashlight in the general direction of the attack, where an innocent victim is being raped, and hope someone will know what to do–and have the guts to act.

When does complaining cross the line from being a serious desire to see others perform at their best, to being a negative view on life? Is expressing frustrations a natural and healthy part of life, or should I strive not to get frustrated in the first place, attempt to be content no matter the situation? And what happens if I get to a point where I’m so content I don’t notice anything that could be or needs to be improved? Shouldn’t I always be striving to do my best? Does contentment suggest putting up with something that’s far from doing your best to glorify God? Questions roll around in my head like clothes in a dryer, and the conversation goes around the room in unending circles.

I saw Orion tonight. I’ve missed him.

It’s 1:00 a.m. and I’m pausing to contemplate life on planet earth. I always stop to contemplate life at such a late hour, and I’m wondering why I’m not in bed. Sleep away the worries of today. But they all come back in the morning, somewhere between the bed and the shower. I’m truly amazed at the world we live in today. We’re so blind to justice. We’re so blind to our very own causes.

I remember the frustration of elderly people on a bridge above the Mississippi River, a river that once carried slaves to freedom. They watched the cars go by, thousands of them an hour, and lamented at how we’re too busy going this way and that way to care about people in pain, people in need. We’re too focused on what we want to notice what others need. And so people die, all around the world while I’m waiting in line at McDonald’s for soda that will rot my teeth and make me a caffeine addict, and greasy food that has fattened a nation–so when’s the slaughter?

The grass is always greener on the other side. Or is it? If the grass is greener on the other side, that means it’s thriving. An unnatural ecosystem is encouraged to corrupt the natural order and this is a good thing? Green grass means no diversity. It means no relationships–the glorification of independence. It means an inefficient system is being favored and promoted. It means the triumph of a non-sustainable ecosystem, one that will inherently drain both time and money.

And we’re jealous of this?

I’m back for real this time. I promise.

Tomorrow begins the first day of my senior year in college. And if that’s not intimidating enough, it’s not really a senior year, it’s a senior semester. In four very short months my formal education will be complete and I’ll enter the real world. I’ll also be starting a wonderful marriage, hopefully finding a wonderful job, and entering the frightful “real world.”

I don’t think I’m afraid so much as in disbelief. Not too long ago I was a quiet high school kid. In many ways I’m still that quiet kid. While my roommates talk about graduate school, I can’t help but wonder if I’m out of my league. I feel like I slipped past the guards and will get a diploma I really don’t deserve. I feel like I haven’t learned that much in these past three years. But in some small way, I know I have. I know I’m a different person than I was three years ago when I fell asleep in my freshman loft, my head six inches from the ceiling, spinning and reeling from too many faces, too few friends, and too much to retain.

I always feel the need to look back and see what I’ve accomplished. Summer has come to an end, and I can tell you I haven’t accomplished much of what I hoped. But it always works out that way, so I’m not too disappointed. But I did manage something this summer like I haven’t done in a long time. I read. I read voraciously, which is something I’ve never done for such a sustained period of time. I read ten books this summer, which I think averages to one a week. It’s not as many books as I had on my summer reading list, but summer reading lists were made to continue indefinitely.

I hope I can continue reading. I know classes will start, and I’ll have a large pile of mandatory reading. I’ll take joy in some of it, but some will be college reading that you can’t enjoy no matter how hard you try. Somewhere in there I hope to have time for leisure reading. I don’t want to sound all scholarly and anal, but I really feel like my mind stretches and grows when I read. Of course there’s a lot of crap out there to read, and some of it might help your mind shrink. I’d love to recommend some books that will stretch your brain. Of course I’m not the end all source for “good” books, nor do I claim to be. But you can always take or leave friendly advice. I’d love it if ReALMagazine.com could offer such friendly advice. I’d love a book review section. Or a movie review section for that matter, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The first book I read this summer is one I was supposed to read for a class in the spring. But I didn’t keep up with the reading and never finished it. So to start the summer I caught up. It was Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscious of a Nation. It tells the story of a lower class New York neighborhood. Kozol visits the neighborhood and shares what he encountered and the stories of the people who live there. At times it can be a difficult read, because he admits that the children he describes have little or no hope. It’s a sad thing when a society abandons its own. But this is our society, and ignoring it gets us no where. Somebody has to live in those places you call “bad neighborhoods,” some child has to grow up there, some widow has to grow old there. Just because we ignore them doesn’t mean no one who lives there matters. Kozol’s book doesn’t give a lot of answers, but it does make you aware. Sometimes that’s the most important thing.

I’ve now established my own cop-out. Whenever I can’t think of anything to write about for ReAL Thoughts, I can offer a summary of one of the books I read this summer. It may be a cop-out, but I can get pretty fired up about some of the books I’ve read, so hopefully it won’t be a real cop-out. I think there’s been enough copping-out in the past month.

It’s good to be back.

People change. 700 miles and 7 months and you wonder what happened. The old crowd is never the same and you can’t live in the past. Going home becomes a more and more depressing experience. Old friends standing around, nodding, telling stories about the past, trying in vain to bring each other up to date. But it never quite takes hold like it used to. For all our technological advances we still can’t keep in touch and keep the growing distance at bay. It grows deep inside each of us and pushes us farther and farther away from one another. Only when you’re standing right next to the person can you ever hope to hold on and struggle through the minute changes that will one day become miles. You can only hope you’ll grow together and be intertwined through those miles.

I watched a movie today and realized the plot wasn’t anything new or original. The plot was threadbare and worn, the characters could be found in any neighborhood Goodwill store, and the jokes were copied straight out of a joke book–and one full of puns, too. It’s not that it was a bad movie, it’s just that it wasn’t original. They told the same old story in a new and somewhat interesting way. They found a creative angle and rehashed the same old same old. Throw in a few nods to other movies in your genre and you’ve got yourself a film. If that’s all it takes, I could become a movie writer. Or so I told myself as I sat there in the dark listening to old women laugh.

This morning (okay, it was really this afternoon) while I was in the shower I came up with an interesting idea for a horror story. Of course it isn’t really a horror story and I usually don’t write those, but that’s okay. That’s what people would think it is, so you just have to go with it. Sometimes I wonder why my imagination is so overactive, and other times I’m thankful it is. I just wish it would be book-size overactive.

Today is July 4. As I write this fireworks are exploding to celebrate the independence of our country. Sometimes I wonder if we not only gained our independence from the British but from each other as well.