"...there's much more to life than what you see, my friend of misery..."
Icy rain coming down in buckets. It washes away what was left of the snow from the night before. The tree is up, two days into December. It doesn’t feel like X-mas.
It hasn’t felt like X-mas for several years. Ever since my father started slowing down. Ever since my we stopped getting real trees and started using the grandmas old artificial one. X-mas hasn’t felt like X-mass since I left home and for a few years before that when I was only one waking up there.
For me, the magic is gone. The magic was waking up before everyone in a full house and sneaking out to the tree to see how many presents I had before waking up my sisters. Then the wait. Staring at the tree, making some hot chocolate as quietly as possible as to not wake our parents (they were not to be woken up before 7 a.m.) At five minutes to we’d go in and wake our parents up to let them know they had five more minutes to sleep before seven came around. Then it was on to the festivities.
We’d all take our usual places: me in front of the fire place, my mom to my left on the couch, then my father in the recliner, my oldest sister on the other couch (when we had it) and my other sister on the ground in the center of us. She would pass out the presents, the kids would go first and then we’d watch our parents open theirs.
Since we stopped doing this, I have stopped doing X-mas.
My eldest sister is married with a child, my other sister now has a child as well who we are going to share our first X-mas with. I myself even have a wife. And yet, I still can’t seem to get into the X-mas spirit.
I don’t mind the lights. I love the snow, the food (though, I love all food all the time), and some of the music but the feel itself of what the holiday is supposed to represent: I just don’t feel it. When I was young it was about waiting for Santa and wondering what presents we were going to get. Now it’s worrying about bills and hoping everyone who is around this year to celebrate is still here next year to do it again.
I am not ready to be the man of the family. I never will be. My father is irreplaceable and I cannot see life without him for as little as we see each other now. And even when we are together we hardly speak.
Everyday I think of my father and worry. I fear getting that call. I know my father doesn’t enjoy the holidays because he and I see things the same way. We are logical, less-emotional people. When everyone is excited we become stoic, waiting, preparing for the inevitable. When everything is going wrong, we remain calm when others do not because whatever is going wrong we had already seen coming or at least prepared for. Emotions cause stress we know, through daily activities, that enough stress will be provided by life to not let our emotions make it worse.
I believe this has been my down fall.
I used to show anger, and waited for the bad to come to me, never preparing, even knowing what bad might come. Just to see what I could handle, what I could do when I was called upon with no help. I have stopped doing this. I have stopped showing emotion to be prepared for life and to help those around me and in return I have lost my creativity and desire to achieve. As I see now in my father.
My father has never told me his dreams. He has never spoken to me of what he wanted to be when he was my age. But, I can assume form the way I feel now and the way he carried himself he did not what to be what he has become. And I don’t want to be that either.
A 56 year old mechanic with MS, barely able to stand and walk to do his job, 3 days from losing said job with less than a month before X-mas. No savings, debt up to his eyes, no future plans and no signs of change. He is overweight, he is tired, he is frustrated, he is bored, he is depressed, and he has no way out of where he is.
And I am well on my way.
There is much more to be said but I cannot think about it anymore or I myself will only become worse off.
Damn it.
It hasn’t felt like X-mas for several years. Ever since my father started slowing down. Ever since my we stopped getting real trees and started using the grandmas old artificial one. X-mas hasn’t felt like X-mass since I left home and for a few years before that when I was only one waking up there.
For me, the magic is gone. The magic was waking up before everyone in a full house and sneaking out to the tree to see how many presents I had before waking up my sisters. Then the wait. Staring at the tree, making some hot chocolate as quietly as possible as to not wake our parents (they were not to be woken up before 7 a.m.) At five minutes to we’d go in and wake our parents up to let them know they had five more minutes to sleep before seven came around. Then it was on to the festivities.
We’d all take our usual places: me in front of the fire place, my mom to my left on the couch, then my father in the recliner, my oldest sister on the other couch (when we had it) and my other sister on the ground in the center of us. She would pass out the presents, the kids would go first and then we’d watch our parents open theirs.
Since we stopped doing this, I have stopped doing X-mas.
My eldest sister is married with a child, my other sister now has a child as well who we are going to share our first X-mas with. I myself even have a wife. And yet, I still can’t seem to get into the X-mas spirit.
I don’t mind the lights. I love the snow, the food (though, I love all food all the time), and some of the music but the feel itself of what the holiday is supposed to represent: I just don’t feel it. When I was young it was about waiting for Santa and wondering what presents we were going to get. Now it’s worrying about bills and hoping everyone who is around this year to celebrate is still here next year to do it again.
I am not ready to be the man of the family. I never will be. My father is irreplaceable and I cannot see life without him for as little as we see each other now. And even when we are together we hardly speak.
Everyday I think of my father and worry. I fear getting that call. I know my father doesn’t enjoy the holidays because he and I see things the same way. We are logical, less-emotional people. When everyone is excited we become stoic, waiting, preparing for the inevitable. When everything is going wrong, we remain calm when others do not because whatever is going wrong we had already seen coming or at least prepared for. Emotions cause stress we know, through daily activities, that enough stress will be provided by life to not let our emotions make it worse.
I believe this has been my down fall.
I used to show anger, and waited for the bad to come to me, never preparing, even knowing what bad might come. Just to see what I could handle, what I could do when I was called upon with no help. I have stopped doing this. I have stopped showing emotion to be prepared for life and to help those around me and in return I have lost my creativity and desire to achieve. As I see now in my father.
My father has never told me his dreams. He has never spoken to me of what he wanted to be when he was my age. But, I can assume form the way I feel now and the way he carried himself he did not what to be what he has become. And I don’t want to be that either.
A 56 year old mechanic with MS, barely able to stand and walk to do his job, 3 days from losing said job with less than a month before X-mas. No savings, debt up to his eyes, no future plans and no signs of change. He is overweight, he is tired, he is frustrated, he is bored, he is depressed, and he has no way out of where he is.
And I am well on my way.
There is much more to be said but I cannot think about it anymore or I myself will only become worse off.
Damn it.