Xmas to Me
*Disclaimer - This is not a self-pity post. This is an angry post.
"So this is Christmas, and what have you done...the rich and the poor ones..." - Oh Shut the Fuck Up! Xmas - (laugh!) - Yet another reminder to me of how far I have fallen. This is just one more day to make feel even worse about myself. Personally I just wish Xmas would leave me the fuck alone. I wish it was never here and if it was here I wish it REALLY was about wholesome good community family type shit.
I wish I could go to my grandparents house, as I do every year, and actually just sit around and eat food and shoot guns or ride 4 wheelers or whatever the fuck we could do. Instead they look at me like I'm from another planet. They look at me as though I were some sort of preppy alien. They hand me gifts as if I were going to spit on them. In actuality they don't even shop for me anymore. They just give me money. When people don't buy you Xmas presents, it's a nice way to say, "Umm yeah...you suck." When good people know you suck - chances are - you suck!
Every year the card holding the money is stamped - "Always the right size. Always the right color."
Don't get me wrong. My relatives that live in that sleepy little nook of Pennsylvania are more amazing people than I or my end of the family could hope to be. They are quiet, reserved, intelligent, and perceptive. Granted they are a little angry, or sullen, I guess you could call it, but for the most part they are what good Americans and people hope to be. They are God fearing, family loving, hard working people that I wish I had come to respect more as an adolescent.
Xmas was always very anxiety stricken around my house. The house never looked right with a tree in it. It was as if there was a sign of warmth in a place that only really knew cold. It was like watching a crippled child pull a ton of bricks up a mountain while 3 Giants stood watching and laughing. The tree and the presents and the stocking always symbolized a sham. It always made me think that my mother was just going to cry at any moment.
There are certain things I look forward to now that I didn't use to before. I look forward to clean air and the quiet of the country. I look forward to talking with my Grandfather and eating good home cooked food and being able to drink out of the faucet. I like my little cousins more now that they are older but have a hard time identifying with them because you can almost feel how much they have been told, "Don't grow up to be like cousin Bret." But then again, I don't know if that's true. I'm sure it isn't but I feel like I should tell them that anyway. They should grow up to be like their parents and grandparents. Actually I can't think of one emulating attribute that I wish they had of mine.
Overall Xmas makes me pretty fucking sad. I hate watching happy people shop for gifts. And I hate receiving cards in the mail from family and friends. I guess I would hate not seeing it more - but honestly if Dec. 25th were the same as July 19th - it wouldn't bother me a bit. But, it's a good sad and a good angry. It's the kind of sad that allows me to reflect. I'll be alone again this year. There will be no Father, and no Mother. There will be no girlfriend or wife. I will have my Grandparents and Aunt and Uncle. And there I will sit at the end of the table. Man without ilk. Man without a fold.
I know I said that I wouldn't write about girls or sad shit anymore but it's tough when I'm so vulnerable to just wanting to be loved. When you screw up your life so bad all you want is someone to maybe right that ship. All you want is verification that your life means something beyond buying people drinks, telling stories, and being the butt of other stories. All you want is someone to save you. And you end up loving well too hard and believing way too much. When you are alone this is what happens. When you are not well in the head this is what happens. You get depressed and you want to throw everything away and make no excuses anymore. You just want to be clean. You want to forget. You want to be strong. You feel like hollow teeth of an old man when you are a rotten person on Xmas.
Just to be clean is the dream. Just to walk with purpose instead of shame is ideal. To be able to honestly and openly tell somebody about your life without it being a punch line or lie is such a dream at this point that all you do is sit around and wonder, "When will I be clean again? When will all this pain go away? Where is my Xmas?"
Xmas doesn't help this cause. It could if it was actually benchmarked. Instead I find Xmas to be a hollow sham of an excuse. It is a day to measure our life by thoughtfulness through money or imagination. What if you have neither? You become a schmuck. It's a day to merit that a sweater is worth more than sticking up for someone in a fight. It's a day to remind us that our deisres are more important than our intentions or convictions. It allows us to painfully see that all we have given in the past has now amounted to only lost memories and faded stories. It's a painful reminder to me that recovery is so far away. It's a painful reminder that all you have in life sometimes is to be loved.
Merry Xmas everyone....that's fucking funny. Jesus that was the most depressing Xmas blog ever written. You all must be thinking that I'm about one step away from offing myself...lol...well anyway...
I don't know how much I'll be posting in the near future. It's that time of the season and all. So despite my demoralizing post I hope everyone I know and have come to love over my life enjoys their holidays. Remember to hug your family a few extra times. Take it from someone who doesn't really have one - it's well worth it.
