As I prepare to host my very first holiday gathering – well, any gathering really – in my new apartment this Christmas Eve, I cannot help but reflect upon the many wonderful memories from past celebrations, most of which took place in the comfort and warmth of Grandma and Grandpa’s house.
With the passing of my grandmother earlier this year, there was an immediate sense that this holiday season would be a bit different.
Goodbyes are never easy. In fact, they may be among the most difficult tasks we are forced to contend with in life, as we become so used to having those we love surround us, as a part of our world. And when they leave, well, that world comes crumbling down.
I remember the moment like it was yesterday. Among the sea of caps and gowns, over the illustrious strains of Pomp & Circumstance… there he was, James Gandolfini, sitting one row behind my family at my college graduation. I could hear the buzz building behind me, as people started to notice. Why is he here? Is he speaking? Does he know someone who’s graduating?
The fact that a celebrity was sitting among us was clearly the highlight for the thousand or so graduates on that day, some nine years ago, on the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University.
We’ve all done it. Admit it. You’ve walked into a movie theatre or arena of some sort – one with “No Outside Food Or Drink Permitted” signs clearly plastered on every entrance – smuggling some type of snack in a well-concealed pocket, a purse, under your hat…whatever. Why should you pay an exorbitant price for refreshments when you can surely find something for far less at a local convenience store, right?
It’s a great idea, in theory.
They say the customer is always right, and yet… I recently had the pleasure of contacting the DMV regarding an error in the address printed on my registration. Silly me, I had sent the renewal in by snail mail rather than utilize their online services for this one thing, and then had proceeded to wait approximately three weeks for my new registration sticker to arrive.
Giant sigh of relief. I did it. I delivered a 20 minute (well, more like 10-minute) keynote address in front of roughly 100 high school journalism students and former professors.
And I survived.
I’m sure we have all heard the expression, “book smart, but no common sense.” It seems slightly contradictory, but quite accurate in many cases.
I can vouch for that.
A few weeks ago, my friend and I got the bright inspiration to walk all the way to Kismet from the Fire Island Lighthouse. I had been told it wasn’t an extremely long journey, and, timed just right in the early fall, would be quite lovely and scenic.
Well, it was certainly scenic.
I don’t get it. Why is it that, more and more, parents insist on taking their young children to movies that they have no business seeing at hours of the night when they would be better served settling in for a bedtime story? Nearly every movie that I’ve seen in the last few months has featured the background noise of a screaming, crying young child, pretty much from the opening credits onward.
Seriously folks?
They say you shouldn’t write when you’re angry. But I am angry. Angry that a beautiful girl with a promising future was taken so suddenly and senselessly from us by the stupidity and carelessness of another human being. Angry that all the hope and promise that came with her graduation from high school just two days earlier vanished in the blink of an eye. And completely devastated by the fact that I knew this girl personally.
Flash back to the little girl in the pale yellow tutu, arms flailing, feet scurrying in a mad dash to join her class onstage for her very first dance recital… Flash forward to (as I write these words) this upcoming weekend, when that same “little” girl will perform in her 20th – and final – show.
Where ever did the years go?