Chapter 50: Christmas Really Sucks

2:42pm

It is Christmas Day. It is the anniversary of the alleged birth of Jesus Christ. It is a day to spend our time, share in our joy and exchange gifts with the people that we love. I want no part of it. I have decided that all I want for Christmas is to not leave the confines of my 11x11 foot room. I don’t want to see anybody. I don’t want to hear from anybody. I don’t want to have to look at the world beyond what is held within these four walls. I don’t want to speak. I don’t want to hear. I want to sleep.

I woke up at 10:30am and quietly snuck out of my bedroom and into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I was surprised to find that the living room was dark, aside from the lights from the mini Christmas tree we set up on an end table in there. I had expected my Mom and her boyfriend to be up and opening the gifts they bought each other. I was glad this was not the case and that I could sneak into the kitchen to get myself a drink. I noticed then that my Mom was in her bedroom sitting on the ground struggling with some sort of drawer. She spotted me and called me over. Her boyfriend was out getting coffee and she was trying to wrap some gifts for him while he was out, but she had put a few things into this drawer and, apparently, overstuffed it. She couldn’t get it open. I spent a few minutes try to help, but was unsuccessful and really just wound up getting in the way, so I took my drink and returned to my bedroom.

I sat down to the computer and checked out Twitter, where I found endless “Merry Christmas” messages from all the various people I follow. I continued reading, hoping for some sort of message that said something to how I am feeling today. I didn’t find anything. I did the same thing with Facebook, and didn’t find anything there, either. So, I turned to YouTube. I found something magical on YouTube. Something I was already aware of, but hadn’t really paid attention to before now: a song, by one of my favorite artists, Jay Brannan, called “Christmas Really Sucks.” I have listened to this song about 20 times so far today. It really is the definition of my feelings towards Christmas this year. “It’s just another day, at least it feels that way, it’s Christmas and I hate it, the streets are empty and so am I, to Merry Christmas I reply: Don’t put your trust in happy ever afters, fall if you must for simple things like laughter, you said you’d always be here, but then you had to go, Christmas really sucks this year, thought you should know…” I have decided that I am sharing my Christmas with Jay Brannan, and Jay Brannan only. He’s the only one who understands how I am feeling right now. I don’t even really understand what I’m feeling right now… but Jay Brannan does.

Around 1pm, I decided that I just wanted to sleep Christmas away. I wanted to spend the day reenacting that scene from “Sex & The City: The Movie,” when they all arrive in Mexico for Carrie’s Honeymoon and Carrie, in a fit of depression, just goes to sleep for a couple days. I would love to do that. Unfortunately, my body is no cooperating. I lied in bed for an hour and fell asleep for maybe 15 minutes. When I woke up I spent another 15 minutes or so struggling to decide whether or not I should go back out to the kitchen for a soda. I could hear that my Mom and her boyfriend were out there cooking and such, and I really just wanted to go unnoticed. Eventually, when it seemed like it quieted down and they were perhaps distracted with something else, I made my way out. I tried my best to avoid eye contact and just get in and get out. There was no soda in the refrigerator and I had to go get some from the living room. My Mom was at the kitchen table finishing up making some deviled eggs, which are a favorite holiday food item of mine, and wanted me to eat some. I ate two, got my soda and returned to the bedroom, where I have been sitting on Jay Brannan’s YouTube channel watching various videos of him performing. He just gets it. A lot of his music focuses on being alone in the world and feeling lonely, or longing for a connection. That is not how I feel in my life, in general, but it is certainly how I feel today. He gets it. I can’t help but imagine sometime down the road, when some other kid in some other city is having a terrible day and feeling something like I am, and the possibility that the way that Jay Brannan just GETS how I am feeling today will be the way that this kid in this city will feel about me. I know that there is no reason for me to feel so down today. I just need to remember what I am doing this for; what I am doing EVERYTHING for. It’s for that kid, and countless other kids out there, that feels alone and needs somebody to understand. That is my purpose in life. I can’t let my silly emotions get in the way of me being there for these people, the way Jay Brannan in there for me. I wonder if Jay Brannan knows that this is what he is doing for me, as well. I wonder if he is aware of that and if that is what he has always aspired to, as well. If that is the case, he is already there… and he should know about it. Maybe I will go email him and let him know.

8:04pm

Still Christmas. Still sucks. I did email Jay Brannan to let him know and thank him for being my companion this Christmas. I have yet to receive a response. I have corresponded with him a few times in the past, and he has always been very sweet and receptive to my varying levels of creepy devotion to him. That did actually make me feel better about the whole “I’m sad and alone and manic depressive on Christmas” thing. It really served as a reminder of what I am doing with my life, and helped me to reroute my focus to that, as opposed to the fact that I am spending Christmas alone in my room. I also made some interesting strides in the quest to write my first full-length musical composition. I have had the full vocal/melody part worked out already, but had not been able to figure out the chord/left-hand part of it, nor did I have a main riff or intro. I have yet to figure out the chords or anything, but I have come up with the main riff/intro, as well as adding a little flair to the general melody and such. It is shaping up nicely, I think. I have discovered this website, as well, that I think will be a great tool in my works. It is called D Chords and it teaches you, visually, how to play each chord. It is pretty cool and very handy.

8:54pm

Okay, sorry about that. I got called out to finally eat Christmas dinner, and my mother was being very impatient with me about it all. Anyway, back to detailing the day. I was feeling slightly better about the day after writing to Jay Brannan, but still did not want to deal with much of anything. I worked on my song, “A Breakthrough,” for a while and kind of tried to go back to sleep, but it didn’t work out. Eventually, I left the room for another drink and found out that my brother was planning on showing up this evening for a brief visit. He was coming to give my Mom her Christmas gift. When he arrived, she kind of flipped out that he bought her a gift, but the gift was very nice. He and his girlfriend bought her a collection of perfumes from Victoria’s Secret, as well as a gorgeous watch from Guess. It was very nice. Because she was so upset about my brother buying her a gift, I told her that when my sister does eventually show up, she’s going to be upset again. I also told her that I did not have a gift for her, which she was fine with. I knew she would be, but I still kind of feel like shit about it. My brother was only here for 30 minutes or so, and I barely spoke the entire time. After that, and after writing that brief bit I did earlier, I went out to have Christmas dinner with my Mom and her boyfriend. I barely spoke that whole time, either. I just don’t feel like talking today. I don’t feel like dealing with anybody or doing anything. I just want to be alone.

As I said before, though, writing to Jay Brannan really reminded me of what I am trying to do with my life. Nothing that is happening right now matters. Having a shitty Christmas doesn’t make a bit of difference in achieving my goals. Continuing work on my very first full-length musical composition DOES make a difference, though. It makes a HUGE difference. I just need to keep my focus on that. My friend Nate, (the one with the YouTube channel,) said to me yesterday that “Single-minded focus is what will get you through.” I need to keep reminding myself of that. Fighting with my sister, having a terrible day yesterday, hating the life I am living here in Florida… none of this should even be a blip on the radar right now. I have talked about how I need to be in the present moment and stop looking to the road laid out in front of me, but I think I was wrong about that. I think what I need to be doing is focusing on the future. Right now isn’t important. Right now is simply the bridge from where I’ve been to where I’m going. Right now is meaningless. I just have to take the time to appreciate the parts of right now that I love, and disregard the parts of right now that I hate. It’s that simple. I need to cherish my friends and my Mom who are always here for me, who I don’t have that much time left with, and do my best to ignore my job and the drama involved there, as well as anybody who doesn’t understand me and is unwilling to make the effort to. I don’t need any of that stuff. What I need is to learn and grow and take what I can from this time, and forget about all the rest of it. THAT is where my focus needs to be. I need to just keep walking this bridge until I am finally on the other side. Then, I can take a seat and figure out where to move from there; where to move in that moment.

3:05am

Christmas is officially over. I can honestly say that I think it was the worst one I've ever had. Not because of nothing going on or no gifts or any of that, but because of how I have felt today. Alone. That is how I have felt. Sometime shortly after midnight I turned to Oh No They Didn't and their Free For All Friday/Christmas post. ONTD, as those in the know refer to it, is a celebrity gossip site unlike any other. Instead of being a blog run by one person, like Perez Hilton, Just Jared or Pink Is The New Blog, it is a community on Livejournal, with all of it's posts being made by any of it's thousands of members. This may sound like a silly concept, but over the years it has broken multiple entertainment news stories, (Pete Wentz' nude pic scandal originated at ONTD, as well as them breaking the news of Jamie Lynn Spears' pregnancy,) and is frequented by various celebrities themselves, (Lily Allen has been quoted as saying she visits, and Eli Roth had the equivalent of a cyber-orgy with the community not long ago,) and because it is updated by so many different users, it has almost constantly got something new and interesting going on. The real selling point for ONTD, though, is the comments on each post. The community is full of hilarious, interesting, sometimes straight up nasty commentary about whatever the topic of the post may be. One thing they do weekly is what they call "Free For All Friday." This is, essentially, a post where members can comment on whatever the hell they want. I normally don't get too involved in the commenting but, like I said before, it was a messed up day and I was feeling the need to make some sort of connection. I wound up in the FFAF post for quite some time, mainly talking back and forth with a girl named Kelly, who is trying to save up money to go to Perth, Australia to do some missionary work. We had a very nice comment conversation and it helped me to pass the time this evening, as well as to feel some sort of connection to the outside world. So, my gratitude goes out to that girl named Kelly. I kind of needed her tonight.

I realize that this is probably the most inconsistent blog I have ever posted and I sadly can't think of any way to tie it all together in the end. It is nearly 4am, and I should be getting to bed. I don't know why, really, considering I don't have any plans for the weekend at all, and will likely spend the rest of the weekend the same way I spent Christmas: Alone in my room. It could be worse, and I know that, but that doesn't make me feel any less shitty than I do right now. What can I say? "Christmas really sucks this year, thought you should know..."