As Christmas is now merely hours away, I can’t help but think what this time of year is supposed to be all about. Yeah, I know. Christmas is supposed to be about the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, but I’m talking about the other meaning of Christmas. It’s about spending time with and cherishing your friends and the ones you love. It’s about letting those people know just how much of a difference they have made by just being in your life. It’s a time to be absolutely happy and cheerful despite the rest of the year being total crap. People do this by giving that special gift, sharing Christmas dinner, throw Christmas parties, go caroling on Christmas Eve (I know, that’s a little old fashioned), drive around together to see the Christmas lights, join people at Christmas parades, and all kinds of other social events. I’m reminded of this every day as I watch families and friends Christmas shop together, and I overhear people plan to spend time with each other over the holidays and enjoy a turkey or ham dinner.
Then, I think about the people that don’t get to really enjoy the holiday season. The holidays for these people are a depressing reminder of how miserable their lives are. To avoid what they feel, people bury themselves in work, get drunk or high, isolate themselves from people around them, and even commit suicide. This just isn’t right. I feel everyone should have the right to feel happy around Christmas, but I realize as I get older that just isn’t the case. More and more people each year become increasingly depressed this time of the year. For a matter of fact, this is the number one time of the year for suicides. I feel sorry for these people. Everyone deserves to be happy, even if it’s just for one day of the year.
I know about this feeling all too well because I am one of these people that hates when the holidays come. Every Christmas since I was a teenager (which was many moons ago), I just wanted to skip Christmas and forget it ever existed. I buried myself in my writing, hiked, and even contemplated suicide. I hit my all time lows in depression around Christmas. Only in the last five years did I realize that I had to change that about myself. I tried to enjoy the holidays again like when I was a kid. I haven’t been too successful so far, though, because of losing my dad, my financial situation, and the huge blow up of my family. I still want happy Christmases again, though, and I still work to make that happen.
I think that the biggest reason that Christmas is my worst time of the year is because I start realizing how truly alone that I am. Where’s the family, friends, and loved ones to spend Christmas with? It’s around this time of the year that I really feel like I have no one in my life. It reminds me of something I felt would happen when I was younger. I always had the feeling that when I got older, I would never have anyone in my life, and I would die alone. Depressing isn’t it, but it’s how I felt back then and sometimes feel like now. And as the years pass, I begin to think it will come true. So, where are all my family, friends, and loved ones?
That’s probably the question you’re asking yourselves right now. Well, part of the blame has to go on me. I went through some dark times in my life that made me distance myself from a lot of people. I’ve also lost a lot of trust in people in general. I’ve become what I thought I would and tried so hard to avoid becoming, a loner. That’s why Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” strikes such a chord in me. It’s about going through things on your own with no one to rely on but yourself. I’ve learned through experience that sometimes the only person that won’t let you down is yourself. You and your own happiness has to be your motivation to go on in life.
Now, some of these feelings I have are well justified by what has happened in my life. I’ve dealt with countless betrayals, backstabbing, lies, and heartbreaks in my short period on this planet. Now, before you say anything, I know that countless other people have dealt with the same thing, but everyone deals with it differently, and some people have a hard time doing that. For those who have dealt with things that happened in their past and moved on, I applaud you. You are obviously stronger than I am, and I congratulate you. Sadly, there are people who scar easier and don’t bounce back so easily. I’m one of them. For people like this, their emotional scars run deeper.
A lot of these scars come from where most people’s scars come from, family. While growing up, I didn’t have the greatest family. I didn’t get to really bond with most of my siblings when I was younger because they had already left the house. The only brother that was still living at home when I was growing up I felt acted like a jerk to me. Now, I think that maybe that was how all older brothers are supposed to be like.
When I finally got to know the rest of my siblings, we didn’t really get too close. I was just a kid, and they were grownups. They didn’t even really try to bond with me either except to try to act more like a parent than a brother or sister. As a result, I’ve always felt distant from them almost like I didn’t have brothers or a sister. The only brother I got close to when I was growing up was my brother Chris, but he was taken from this earth before it was his time when he was murdered. That is a scar that I think will never fully heal.
My dad always worked, so I never got to see much of him. When I did see him, he always felt so distant from me never doing those things fathers and sons do together. Don’t get me wrong. He wasn’t a bad father. He got me whatever I needed or wanted to the point of spoiling, but he could never could connect with me on an emotional level. Some would say he could never express himself emotionally, but I sometimes wonder if it was because of something that had happened which I will explain in a little bit. All I know is that at the time I felt like he didn’t love me despite everything he got me. The gifts felt like buy offs or a way of telling me to take the toys and leave him alone.
My mother was just a psychological mess. Between what happened between her and her father when she was growing up and the constant bickering with my dad, she was a very angry person. At a moment’s notice, she would turn from a sweet woman who would do anything for you to a violent knife-throwing psychopath. I lost count of how many knives and coffee cups (among other things) that she threw at my dad or my siblings out of rage. She even took it out on our dogs by hanging them by their leash or kicking the crap out of them. When I was a kid, I felt sorry for her blaming my dad for the way she was especially when he tried to divorce her which totally destroyed her emotionally. As a result, I felt like I had to protect her from the dangers of the world. Thinking back, I think that was a mistake as I have realized what kind of person she really was.
As for the rest of my family, I never really got close to them after some huge dispute in the family caused everyone to break up. Before that, we had family get-togethers and pig pickings. Then, without warning, it all stopped. I don’t think the family ever really truly recovered from that. As a result, I never really got to know my cousins, uncles, aunts, and my grandmother. This depresses me when I see other people who are close to their families. It’s something I don’t think I’ll ever experience.
When I was a little kid, I thought my family was normal. That all changed when my brother was killed. That’s when I saw how truly messed up my family was. Our family broke down from that day on and never truly recovered. I saw the hatred that could exist between a father and a daughter, how infidelity could drive a wedge between a husband and wife, how a brother could turn to alcohol and drugs to escape the pain, how a brother could become so arrogant thinking he could do no wrong because of his time in the military and making it in life, and how I was caught in the middle of all of this just trying to cope with loss and his own problems of depression.
It almost seemed like after that moment, everyone went off in their own direction forgetting everyone else existed. This went on for quite a while. Then, shortly after I moved out of my parents’ home in 2005, things started turning around. Families started talking again. My mother and father were getting along some what better. I was connecting with my brother, Tom. I even spent time with my uncles, cousins, and nephews. It felt like we were really becoming a family again. Sadly, that was short-lived.
Once again, a death in the family revealed what my family were really like. This time, it was my dad. The really sad part about this was for the first time in my life, I felt like I was really bonding with him. We were doing things together, talking about problems, and sharing those little father-son moments. I would have thought this would have finally brought the family fully back together, but that was not the case. Instead, it was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. I found out how truly bad my sister’s mental state was fading. I found out how family really felt about us. I found out my mother was slipping away mentally. I found out how much a brother hated another over something that happened in the past with no chance for forgiveness. I found out how quickly family members could turn against you because of what someone else said about you. I found out just what my dad dealt with trying to take care of both my mother and my sister. I also found out how one brother’s motivations, whether they be greed, arrogance, or whatever, could completely decimate what was left of this family.
It all started when Tom took over the funeral arrangements. At first, it felt like we were a family setting up the funeral, but that didn’t last long. It started with Dad’s wishes for who should get what. He did follow to the letter of what my dad said everyone would get according to his will, but when it came to what was not mentioned in the will, no one else got any say of where it went. Now, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t care about possessions. I would gladly trade it all back to get my dad back, but it felt like Tom was on some kind of power trip.
He didn’t even attempt to contact my brother, Steve. I wanted to contact him. After all, he had the right to know his dad had passed. I had the decency to call Tom when it happened, despite what I felt about him at the time. Didn’t Steve deserve that same right? Despite everything that he had done in the past, he had the right to know. It makes me wonder if I never found my sister to tell her what happened, would he have even attempted to find her and let her know. He just casted everyone else aside like they didn’t matter. He didn’t give a damn about what anyone else thought. All that he seemed to care about was that he was in charge, and he made sure to make that clear to everyone.
He didn’t stop there. He thought that everyone, including me, would try to take advantage of Mom and take her money away, so he made the choice without discussing it with anyone and had her sign a power of attorney over to him. This made it legal for him to make all financial and medical decisions for her regardless of what she or anyone else thought. He treated her like a child from that point on.
Despite all of that, I still progressed with Dad’s wishes for me to take care of both my mother and my sister. Unfortunately, he didn’t think I was capable of such an adult decision. He thought he could do better. He had no faith in me to let me do what I had to do. Instead, he kept undermining everything I attempted to accomplish for her well-being. Through lies and behind-the-back politics, he turned her against me. He had her believing that I was only using her and my sister for their money. He spread the same lies to my sister. After that, I realized I was fighting a losing battle. All I was in everyone’s eyes was a thief and a user. I couldn’t believe I would stoop so low as to use my mother or steal from her. It’s made me wonder if it was all about the money. I just wanted to take care of her and never once tried shutting him out of her life. I guess in his eyes I wasn’t good enough to take care of her.
Now, I have realized how Steve felt for over a decade, like a black sheep. Thanks to Tom, I was an outcast from the whole family, and I didn’t feel like I did anything wrong. I just tried to take care of things. I wonder sometimes if the way he treated me was because of a revelation I learned after my dad passed. I was informed that I was not the biological son of my dad. I wonder if he believed that too especially after he confirmed that it was a possibility before he took my mother to Florida. I admit that at one point I questioned that. Now, I know who my biological dad is, and he’s the man I always knew was. The question is does Tom believe that he isn’t? How many in the family knew this? This could explain why I felt so distant from everyone growing up. Maybe everyone looked at me as a reminder of my mother’s infidelity. It would explain so much.
I know, though, that my dad has to be turning in his grave right now because of how the family has turned out. We’re supposed to be sticking together and caring about one another. That’s what family is all about. Instead, we have put our own self-righteous needs in front of the needs of the family. It hasn’t even been a family in years. This is not the example my dad had left with us. I thought at one point that Chris’s death was what lead to the breaking of this family, but now I realize that my family had been broken a long time ago. It may never be repaired.
What about friends? Well, growing up, I had very few friends, and these days I question just how many of those were actually friends. Once again, you could put part of the blame on me. I was never a very outgoing person growing up. I was shy and introverted. Sometimes, it was like I was in my own little world. Despite being like this, I did make some friends along the way, but I learned quickly to be careful who I trusted. Many people pretended to be my friend as a joke just so they could make fun of me. A lot were also two-faced and were my friend as long as certain people weren’t around.
One of my worst memories of betrayal was with a guy named Joey. I had been friends with his brothers before him, but we slowly faded apart as they wanted to start hanging with the cool kids, and I guess I just wasn’t cool. Joey was different, though. He was almost like the younger brother I never had. He seemed to enjoy hiking, the creative projects I took on, and other things I was interested in while growing up. With Greg, we became the three musketeers. That went good until near the end of high school. He became increasingly more interested in things the “cool” kids did which I had no problem with. I just had no interest in those things (like partying and dating). He still hung out with me, though. He wanted me to be interested in those things too, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea so to speak. It wasn’t long until every time we hung out, it seemed like he didn’t want to be there. My question was why did he even come around in the first place if he didn’t want to be there. He also stopped suggesting ideas of what we could do always leaving that decision up to me, and then, he told me my ideas were boring, childish, and he didn’t want to do them. I tried to get him to make suggestions, but he never had any. As a result, we started arguing every time we hung out. It made it more and more pointless to even spend time together. Then, I finally found out how he felt about me.
Every year during that time, I did a huge Halloween display. It almost became like a outdoor haunted house full of thrills and chills. Up to that point, Joey and Greg had helped me with that display and participated in the scares on Halloween night. I thought we were having a blast, but I found out Joey didn’t really want to do it. This was fine, even though it did hurt a little, but I decided to do the display on my own. He thought I couldn’t accept the fact that he didn’t want to participate. Then, he started blaming me for every argument we ever had which led to yet another argument. He said that all I wanted to do when we hung out was what I wanted to do. I never wanted to do what anyone else wanted to do which was crazy to me because no one else never really suggested anything else to do. It was always left up to me. Then, he accused me of being gay. Really? After all that we had been through, he thought that whole time I was gay. This cut me really deep. I knew from there our friendship was over. I didn’t want it to be, but it was a losing battle.
As a result, I became very cautious about who I called friend. I tested everyone who became a candidate to see if they were trustworthy and worth the time and effort. For a while, I thought I had a pretty good system for figuring out who was worthy to be called friend, but then, I found out how truly flawed my system was. I thought I had a good friendship in a guy named TJ. We shared a lot of interests and both enjoyed creative projects. For a while, things were going great. Even after he got a girlfriend, we still hung out. This changed when he moved to Raleigh. In the beginning, it was okay. I went up there to hang out with him, but I should have known something was wrong when he never came back here to hang out except on rare occasions. As time progressed, he started contacting me less and less. Then, it stopped all together. I tried contacting him, but I never got any kind of response. It’s like he forgot I ever existed. I found out from his brother that he converted religions because of his girlfriend who was now his wife. He was now a Jehovah’s witness. His brother thought that was the reason behind his change because he also stopped seeing his family as often. I don’t know. I just know it hurt because I was even careful about who I chose as a friend.
That made me a loner for quite a while. Then, I met the latest disaster at work. His name was John. Once again, we shared a lot of the same interests like Transformers, wrestling, and video games. We also shared a desire to do creative things. Mine was writing while his was creating custom twelve inch figures and painting. You would think this would have been a perfect friendship. Once again, my choice was flawed. First off, he started becoming too needy, always wanting to hang out even when I was in the mood to be by myself. He acted more like a girl clinging on to a boy. It became too much for me to handle, so I had to put some distance between me and him. He was also naïve about a lot of things in life, so it felt like I had to teach him about everything from cooking to how to deal with bills to even budgeting. Then, I made the biggest mistake. I let him move in with me, my mother, and my sister while I was taking care of them.
That’s when I found out what kind of person he really was. He had gotten kicked out of his apartment because he made some huge mistakes with his finances. I should have just told him to move in with his parents, but because of the kind of person I am, I took it upon myself to help him. First off, he said he could only help so much with the bills when in reality, he was still blowing money on his customs and video games instead of worrying about things like food and rent (or for that matter, not even the bill collectors that were after him). This put me into a deeper financial hole than I already was in especially when my sister abandoned the household and Tom took my mother to Florida. He was also still very clingy. I tried doing things with him from playing video games to playing Dungeons & Dragons, but he was a very poor sport. He wanted to quit and never play again just because he wasn’t winning. I didn’t want to watch wrestling with him either because I was losing interest in it. A lot of that was because I saw how serious he took it (especially when it came to arguments about the Undertaker). It made me lose interest in the show (as well as the horrible writing on the show). It got to the point that I couldn’t stand hanging with him, so I tried to spend more and more of my time by myself.
Then, when the house we were staying in became too much to afford, we moved into the apartment I’m living in now. He barely helped with the move. For the most part, I was on my own. He was more worried about going on vacation and seeing his parents instead of taking care of business. As a result, the place never got one hundred percent organized (which I’m trying to correct now, watch updates on that on my vlog, Krimson's Korner). He knew that if we didn’t get things set then, I wouldn’t have a chance because I worked two jobs which took up a good majority of my life. He then blamed me for the place being in such a mess (which I do take my fair share of the blame).
Then, more arguments proceeded because of him having to contribute more which only meant he would be paying his fair share which he could easily afford. He always said he couldn’t afford it, but all he wanted to do was blow his money on other things. It’s not like I had a lot of money to blow on fun. I had to put a huge majority of my money into bills too. That’s just part of life. He started accusing me of not using his share of the money on stuff that didn’t involve bills, but I tried explaining time and time again where his money was going. He never seemed to get it, but he never was very bright when it came to money.
The arguments about money and stupid things like whether or not I liked a movie and Superman (don’t even ask) became too much that I didn’t even want to hang out with him at all. I wanted out. I was ready to leave the apartment and move in with my brother, Steve, in Tennessee. Unfortunately, I fell on really hard times with losing jobs and losing hours at the jobs I currently work. I couldn’t afford to move out on my own, and it became increasingly hard to maintain even basic bills. Before long, I couldn’t afford things like my car, food, cell phone, and other conveniences. I didn’t want to ask because I hate asking people for help because what has happened in the past, but I asked John for his help financially by buying more food and getting the occasional ride here and there. The problem is at a later point he would always throw it back in your face that he did this or that for you. I’ve had experience with people like that which is one of the reasons I try not to ask people for help. It caused more friction in the household especially between him and Greg (who needed help again). I had to find a way out.
Unfortunately, they say “When it rains, it pours”. They could have never been more right. John lost his job because of his stupid actions of posting threats to his boss among others on his Facebook page. Now, he had no money to contribute period, and I was stuck with all of the bills which I knew I couldn’t afford. He could have took this opportunity to find a better job and do better for himself, but apparently, he already had it in his mind that he was going to give up. He stopped looking for jobs here, and he blew some of the remaining money he got from his last check on a video game instead of worrying about what needed to be taken care of. The last straw was when he said he was just going down to his parents to take some time to think about things and relax. He made it clear to both Greg and I that he had no intentions of ditching us and leave us hanging with all of the bills. He said he would be back. I’m not stupid, though. He already had sent most of his stuff to his parents saying he was afraid of losing that stuff if we lost our place to live. I also knew he didn’t put a lot of effort into searching for a job here. He spent most of his job hunting where his parents lived. I also overheard him talking to his parents about not coming back, so when he finally made it clear that he was staying with them, it didn’t surprise me at all. He didn’t even have the guts to call us and tell us his intentions. He posted it on Facebook as an announcement to everyone.
It was the final blow. I had been through too much crap in my life to be forgiving anymore. I wanted nothing to do with him from that point on. I didn’t even talk to him when he came to get the rest of his stuff. It left everything on my shoulders, and it made me question the real worth of friendship. That leaves me back at square one again at reevaluating how I choose my friends. I don’t even know if I can trust anyone any more.
Now, some of you know that I have a girlfriend, and you’re probably saying how could I be alone during the holidays with her around. Well, to a certain extent, you’re right. She has helped me through some really lonely times. There are some big problems, though. First off, she lives in Ohio, and I live in North Carolina. We have been trying for ten years to move in together, but every plan we have come up with has fallen through. To make matters worse, in recent years, Gail became sick. She has Stage IV colon cancer. She has been fighting hard to stay alive, but as each day passes, I know that she will one day lose that battle and leave this world. It’s definitely made things harder for us to be together. It will be up to me to take care of her, and as you know, I don’t have the finances to do that. I want so bad to be with her, but it seems like sometimes everything is against that happening. I’ve never been so uncertain about whether or not we’ll ever be together. I know, though, that when she dies, it will send me over the edge. She’s the one that has kept me going for the past ten years. I would have gone off the deep end if it wasn’t for her. As much as I want to have faith in that we will be together, I’m realistic. By the time I’m able to financially afford to take care of her, she will most likely no longer be with us.
This is the reason that I believe that the prediction I made when I was a teenager about dying alone will still come true. I don’t feel like I have much of a family anymore. Friends are almost non-existent right now. The chances of being with the one woman I truly love are getting slimmer and slimmer each day. And, I’ve lost trust in people in general making it harder to find friends. I feel more alone each day, and it gets really depressing. I’m starting to feel like I did shortly after high school when I was alone then.
This is what makes Christmas so hard for me. I want to enjoy this time of year like everyone else, but it’s a holiday that requires special people to enjoy it with you. It’s around this time that I feel totally alone. There was a point in my life when I was mad with the world that I wouldn’t mind being all alone, but I’m a different person now. I’ve grown up, and I want a family to care for, friends to have good times with, and a woman that I can love with all of my heart. I’ve been alone, and even though it can be great some days, most days it sucks.
So, where are those family members who support you no matter how you are? Where are the friends that you consider best friends that you can always go to no matter what has happened? I want to know where the true family and friends exist. I know they’re out there because I see other people spending time with their family and friends. Am I just destined to be alone? If I am, why? What have I done so wrong to deserve to be alone? Will I ever enjoy Christmas again?
I’ve got to be fair. There are still a few people out there that have been there for me. Out of my family, I stay in contact with two. My brother, Steve, got back in touch with me shortly after our dad passed. We’ve been keeping in contact ever since (even though I have to apologize to him for not keeping in contact with him as much as he does with me). I’ve also got in contact back with my nephew, Michael. We used to be very close around when I knew TJ until disputes caused us to split. Now, though, I talk to him every once in a while, and he seems to be doing alright which I am glad. Out of my friends, I have only one left. Greg and I have known each other since early middle school days, and despite the fact that sometimes we can be two totally different people, we have still maintained some kind of friendship. I don’t know how considering how we have went at it in the past. We definitely have a huge difference of opinion when it comes to certain things, but some how, we are still friends. I also still have Gail despite what is going on with her health. She has put up with a lot of my crap and has still stayed with me for which I will be forever grateful for.
I worry, though, about how much longer these relationships will last. I think about the past a lot and wonder if it is just a matter of time before they leave out of my life. I don’t want to be alone. I know that these days I don’t have the strength to meet anyone else or the trust to give them. One day, I may have to face that fact, but until then, I would like to thank Gail, Steve, Greg, and Michael for always being there and for putting up with me when I can be an asshole. I do cherish those people in my life. I just wish I could be a better person for them. I’m working on it, though, as I continue down my journey on Krimson’s Korner to be a better, more positive person. I just hope they can stay patient with me.
Anyways, I’m sorry if I talked your ear off (more like eyes). I know I can go on for a very long time, especially in my writing. Gail always said I wrote a book when I write anything. She’s absolutely right. I want to thank you for taking the time to read this overly long blog over the holidays. I really needed to get this off my chest, and I have to admit that I feel a little better. Thanks for reading my blogs, and for those who have supported me by subscribing to my channel on YouTube. You, as well as the above four people, are the ones that make this journey I am taking in life worth it. I hope you will keep reading my posts, subscribing to my channel, liking and commenting on my videos, and continue taking this journey with me. Merry Christmas, everyone, and I really hope you have a Happy New Year! This is Krimson signing out. Peace!
