With just a few days away, I feel like my holiday spirit is waning. (Or Christmas spirit…it’s ok to be Un-PC now that Hannukah is over, right?) I blame it on the hustle & bustle; mine specifically including seven states in ten days. I’m tired, that’s a given, but I find my temperment to be close to ornery and my impatience to be at an all-time high. Perhaps a combination of the crowds, a bit of exhaustion, and the pervasive message that Christmas is a time of togetherness. And, to that end, I’m lacking.

Honestly, I know the holidays are spending time with those you love, but that extends far from just your immediate family and – most prevalent in commercials galore – the one you love. Well, my ‘one’ is somewhere out there in many-dom, doing a damn good job of making himself absent this year, as he was all others; my ‘one’ is still yet to be found. (Or, more precisely, my ‘one’ is out there and has still yet to find moi. Semantics, I suppose, but important semantics at that.) Which leads me to realize that a year later, not much has changed.

And yet it has. The past year has brought with it new friends, old friends rediscovered, changes in work, life, and – of course – guys. I’ve learned a lot, laughed a lot, loved a lot and, thankfully, cried just a little bit. Which I suppose is a pretty good calculation, all in all. I’m confident that the next year will also come with changes galore, as it always seems to, and yet I suppose part of me is scared that I’ll be writing these same words this time next year. That I’ll be watching the same cheezy Christmas movie (well, at least the same genre; if it has Steve Gutenburg in it next year, I think I may have to pass) curled up on the couch, wondering what is to come and what the next days may bring, and despite being surrounded by friends and family, still feeling lonely.