Do You Remember Rock n' Roll Radio?

All right kids, listen up, because this NEVER happens. I am having, as they say, one of those nights. Is it everything finally catching up to me? MAYBE. But I've been thinking a lot about high school lately, and that always makes me sad. Because...and I enjoy being out here on my own, doing my own thing, and I love the friends I have out here. I do.

But I think about the Playwriting Festival, and I think about Tech. And I don't regret not pursuing those in college, I don't even regret getting out of Film. There's too much paperwork, too much union crap out here in the good old real world. But I miss that feeling when the lights went down and it was all on this group of people you couldn't believe you were lucky enough to be a part of.

I applied to the LA program here at Emerson, where you spend the second semester of Senior Year living, working, and learning in LA. Now, LA isn't the place I want to spend my life. But I thought, if I got into it, at least I could be back on the West Coast, with fairer winters and just a more laid-back attitude. Boston is...Boston's fine, but there's no comparison to the West Coast. I hate riding the subway.

But I didn't get into the LA Program, you know. So that's another...well, probably eight months out here with the way the lease works.

So I think about high school a lot. And I think about how much is lost since then, and how thankful I am that I'm still friends with the people I'm still friends with, but how GONE that community is. By which I mean you could rely on anyone you knew even the slightest bit if something was hitting the skids, at least just for a conversation. I don't want to get overly dramatic, but remember how it felt coming back from the Encounter? Or the Senior Pilgrimage, or Silent Retreat? Not how it was, but how it FELT. Now...messages go unanswered, Outsiders Looking In is a shell of its former self, and people just don't have the time they did before. Or that's what you hear.

I know I'm being unrealistic. Things happen, people drift away, even the ones you least expect. But this wasn't how it was supposed to be.

Now, I know...chances are whoever's reading this, you're not the people I'm talking about. That's just the way it is. But besides this just being a general, maybe pointless rant, I just want to say how thankful I am. I was in the apartment on my own this Thanksgiving, which was fine, didn't really bother me that much. But I took a moment to think about what I'm really, really thankful for.

And it's you guys. I've got a lot else to be thankful for, but above all else it's you guys, reading this now. I guess I don't know who all doesn't read this, but I know some of who does. And this is me, to you, saying thanks. For sticking by, for calling that week a little while back, for keeping alive that stuff that mattered to me the most after four years at JHS. It kills me (it does) that I won't be able to spend next summer with you. It goes beyond finances; I could find someone to live in my apartment (creepy as that may be to me) - I just have to be on my own now. Comes a certain time, you just can't live under your parents' roof anymore. Gotta strike out on your own, and that's what next summer, more so than the school year, is about.

But I can't wait for Christmas. This is probably the most excited I've been for the break...at least since Freshman year. I'll only be there for three weeks this year (Dec 20 through Jan 12), but I fully expect the level of excellence we've brought to those weeks in the years past.

So again, I thank you, and ask that you help me never let this go.

Your regularly scheduled inanity will continue next time.