my future’s end

Hello all!

I hope that I can type this out in the short amount of time that I have remaining in the day to do so.  Let me just say that it’s been an interesting weekend.  It was filled with family time, coming to the aid of one of my best friends, witnessing a moment of domestic violence (female to male, believe it or not), the revelation of two blossoming romances of friends, a visit with one of my 3 doctors, with 4 Low Masses sprinkled throughout it all. 

That’s a lot to take in, right?!  The main part that I wanted to focus on in an attempt to allow the emotions to leave my system are the budding romances of two couples of friends of mine.  Well, I should probably clarify it by saying that one of the couples belongs to a group on facebook that I’m a part of.  We’re a very small group of people from literally around the world and two of the members met up here in the United States this weekend.  The other couple are 2 very good friends of mine whom I actually know in the real world. 

Let me put it right on front street for y’all.  The majority of my emotions are very positive towards this.  How could it not be, right?  But, if I’m being honest, a significant part of me is sad.  I’m not sad that I wasn’t the suitor for either one of the women.  Not at all.  I’m sad for me, personally.  All I’ve ever wanted in my adult life is to be married and have children.  I know, crazy idea, right?!  I never had the desire to fornicate with as many women as possible.  I never desired to play the field.  I never desired to have more than a couple of girlfriends in my life before finding my wife and having children.  Ever since I was a teenager, I wanted this.  I’m 42 now and I find myself 3 years removed from my last failed and toxic relationship and although the term I’m about to use is offensive when speaking of women, I’m going to say it about myself.  I “hit the wall”.  I’ve reached the age where going younger than let’s say 35 years old in a partner is kinda creepy.  The creepy factor increases the younger I go.  The window of healthy childbearing women however starts to close the closer to 40 they get, so therein lies my problem.  Well, that’s the problem on that side of the equation.  The problem with me is probably extensive.  I mean, I can tell you right up front the physical problems that women have with me.  First off, I’m fat.  I know, that can be fixed.  But as it stands now, it is what it is.  Secondly, I’m short.  Now, there’s nothing that I can do about that.  After that, I live a very simple and quiet lifestyle.  Also, I’m ultra introverted, so I don’t want to be out anywhere.  On top of all of that, I don’t care about money.  I don’t seek it, don’t worry about it, and I have just enough to keep me very comfortable.  I have no desire for social status or wealth.  That’s not important to me.  Finally (and this one shocks me every time it bubbles up to the surface as an issue), I’m very religious and dedicated to my faith.  That’s been an issue with the last 3 girlfriends.  Who would have thought, right?!  A dude who wants to be a better man and live his life for God and that’s apparently a bad thing.  Yikes.

So with all that said, I’ve been praying every night for roughly 2 years for our Lord to bless me with my wife.  As you can tell, that hasn’t happened.  It kinda staggered me when I saw my facebook friends get together from the distance of the Atlantic Ocean, but getting the confirmation that two of my friends were officially seeing each other knocked me out.  I finally got the message that God was giving me all along.  That message was “No.”  As was said in 1 Corinthians 7, it’s better to remain unmarried.  Specifically starting with verse 32; “32 I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; 33 but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please his wife, 34 and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband. 35 I say this for your own benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord.”  Message received.  God wants me to live for Him.  I have to suppress my desire for marriage and fatherhood.  If anything, that’s my cross to bear.  Now, I just have to mourn it.  I feel sorry for my dad.  He really wanted me to get married and have kids.  He never told me, but he told my sister and my grandparents that.  I feel like I let him down.  I feel sorry for me because I really did want that too.  I would have been a great father.  My kids would have grown up in a happy home filled with love and the knowledge of our Lord.  All of that has to be locked away now in memories of a future that will never come to pass. 

As of yesterday, I stopped praying to God to bless me with a wife and children.  It hurts like I’m going through a breakup, but it’s for my own good.  Now, I gotta shift my focus to my nephews and give them all the love I can.  I also gotta enjoy every new day that God gives me and rejoice in it.  He’s blessed me with so much.  I have to stop being sad with what I don’t have and be thankful for what I do.

Life goes on.

16 months gone, but i’m back

Hello and a blessed Holy Week to you all! 

Well, after taking a look at my last real post in December of 2021, aka 1.5 years ago, I wanted to fill you in as to what I’ve been doing since then.  Life has been… traumatic if I want to be honest.  I was fighting burnout and sadly I nearly talked myself into suicide again this past June after a 12-year serious suicidal thoughts break.  Burnout can be deadly.  I had to learn that the hard way.  Thankfully, I took a much needed vacation in August, going back to Las Vegas for the first time in 4 years and had a good time.  Well, a good time except for killing my feet wearing Crocs.  LOL!!!!! 

Yeah, guys, that finally happened over the Rona times too.  I was one of the people who became obsessed with Crocs clogs.  I don’t remember if I posted about it or not, but after getting my first pair of them sometime 2 or so years ago, I never went back.  I have something like 13 pairs of Crocs including LiteRide Flips, the swimming sandals, and 2 pairs of work clogs!  I know.  It’s crazy.  I do own 2 pairs of Nike sneakers just in case I need them for other things, and now I learned that I do need them when I visit Las Vegas, but otherwise, I’m always in Crocs now.

Anyway, back to my post, I’ve been on a real good ride since August with a bit of bad thoughts mixed in.  Allow me to briefly fill that part in about the good ride.  So, after the bad June with the serious suicidal thoughts, I was invited to play drums for a show for a friend of a friend for his album release party.  I was in an outfit with 3 guitarists, a bassist, and me.  Aside from the kid who put it together, I was playing with complete strangers.  Not only that, they were all 15-20 years younger than me.  That was a trip!  What was an album release party turned into being a full-on band thing.  At first I was excited, but very quickly there were drawbacks.  First of all, I was a hired gun drummer who wasn’t getting paid.  Now, let me be clear.  I don’t care about money, I’m not driven by money, and I don’t do things for money.  HOWEVER, I am a man of principle.  What’s fair is fair, right?  We did a number of shows and I KNEW somebody was getting paid.  All I would have liked would have been a fair share of that.  I’m not one to be completely taken advantage of.  Secondly, I had no say in the creative process of this group.  New music was being written, but there was no input from me about it all.  What kind of madness is that?!  I thought it was a band, and towards the end we actually did have a name to the band, but did it run like an equal say in 5 parts band?  Nope!  I’m sorry, but I can’t do that either.  If I’m playing music, I want to have ownership of that music.  I don’t want to feel like I’m playing some other person’s part.  That’s not fun for me.  On top of all of that, we’d practice every weekend in the evening for 2-3 hours.  Gone was my precious downtime that I sorely needed.  It all added up.  I had to go.  Yes, I played at venues I only dreamed of playing.  Yes, I was mic’ed up to high dollar sound systems, but with that said, it was for 30-45 minute sets and doing it for free… after taking the time and effort of loading up and building up my drums, only to break them down, transport them back home, and unloading and storing them back up again.  Too much work for that little of a time to play music that quite honestly I didn’t enjoy or take ownership of.  I ended up retiring from actively playing in a band as of 3 weeks ago.  It feels good.  I accomplished a lot and it was my time.  No regrets.

Another kind of downer part has been my family life.  Since the pandemic, I’ve rarely seen my dad, sister, brother-in-law, or nephews.  I mean, I’ve seen them, but not nearly as much as before.  Being in this band for the 9 months I was in, really hindered that as well, and I’ve realized that I’ve felt as though I’ve abandoned my family.  That ain’t cool at all.  All of this and more about it really came to my mind in earnest starting around the holidays of this past December as we had weekends off from the band.  This year was coming up and I was already dreading the Saturday night or Sunday morning practices where I’d have to load my drums up, set up for half an hour, then play music I didn’t enjoy for 2-3 hours, and break my drums back down, bring them back home, put them up, and be tired and disappointed that I missed a sporting event, free time, or both… and also miss out on possible family time.  I miss seeing my nephews.  I miss seeing my dad.  I miss talking to my sister.  All of that has played a huge factor in changing my life to quit music.

Now, with that said, last weekend I had a retirement lunch/dinner thing on Saturday that I had to go to, and this past weekend, I made it a point to do nothing to help my recovery from burnout and obligations… and this is Holy Week, so I’m booked up again this coming weekend, but after that it’s time to focus on family!  I’m really looking forward to what the future has in store for me.

Now, onto the main reason that I wanted to write this blog post.  Here, as far as I can tell, I only have 1 dude who I know outside of this website (what’s up dude!?), so I feel a bit more free to share the things that I would otherwise keep to myself, like loneliness for example.  Yep!  Super introvert, super INFJ me gets lonely sometimes.  Actually, what it really is… or rather how my brain is making sense of it all is a longing for something I’ve never truly had, which is a partner.  Sure, I’ve had girlfriends, but none of them ever really felt like they were going to truly stick around and make that next step.  My brain, however, has been haunting me with the happy memories I’ve had with each one of them.  If I’m going to be completely honest, I have a fair amount of jealousy for those I see around me who are married and have kids.  I constantly ask myself a variation of “Why didn’t this ever happen to me?  What’s so wrong about me that I was never considered?  I guess it’s never too late, but dang!  You’re 42, brother.  Your time seems to have come and gone.  You’ve already got friends who are grandparents for crying out loud!  And here you are… with nothing.  Poor bastard.”  …or something along those lines.  I feel sorry for myself.  I really do.  And to be honest, I know some main points as to why I’m alone.  First off, I’m short.  Secondly, I’m overweight.  Next, if a woman can get past those two things, they find an issue with the fact that I’m not money hungry or driven by financial success in any sense.  By then, they’ve already moved on and I’m ignored.  It’s terrible.  I keep trying to get my fitness in check, but I can’t do anything about my height or lack therof.  I wish I understood why money is a thing.  I mean, I make enough to live in a nice place, I have all the comforts that I enjoy, I’m able to take small trips every now and again, but I don’t care about money enough to buy flashy things, have a newer vehicle, or anything like that.  I live a simple life.  I live an honest life.  Oh!  And I haven’t even mentioned my love for Christ and His church.  That, apparently, is a turn off too and has been for previous girlfriends in my life.  So, anyway, point is that I’m alone.  I try not to let it get to me, but lately it has been.

It’s gotten worse lately too, by the way.  I finally got a great deal on a Catholic dating website for a year subscription, so I took it and of course after a few months, I’ve either gotten no replies to messages or a quick “I’m not interested” in so many words.  Am I really that unlovable?  It seems so.  Just so you know, I’m audibly sighing as I type this out.  We all are given our cross(es) to bear and this seems to be mine.  I’m really going to make an effort not to have that bit of jealousy creep in every time I go to Mass and see couples and families all around me.  It’s not easy, nor will it get any easier, but it’s just something that I’m going to have to bear. 

If things change in that regard, I’ll be sure to keep you all updated.  Speaking of keeping y’all updated, I’m really going to try to carve out some time on the weekends to continue to update you on the other things in my life that I’ve either forgotten to share here and/or new developments in my life.  I’m sorry for being away for those 1.5 years, but I’m back now.  Free to share the things that I can’t anywhere else!

Talk soon!

I’m still here!

Hi y’all! I know it’s been forever!!!! I apologize. Long story short, life. With that said, however, I plan to write what’s on my heart here very soon because this is about the safest spot that I have online. I’m pretty sure that nobody that knows me personally reads this, so I feel that I can be completely forthright and not risk emotional damage by saying things that I need to get off my soul. So!! That will be coming soon! I ran out of time today and honestly I’m super tired as it is, but I hope to type everything out and post it here in the next few days! See you all soon!

Peace OUT 2021!

Hi all and a very merry Christmas to you and your families!

I just wanted to drop by here to make some quick points and share a couple of related wonderful things that have happened to me recently.

So, first thing is first, the goal I set out to have the birthday that I wanted and the Christmas that I wanted didn’t quite go as planned.  Nothing was completely destroyed or anything, but they definitely did not go to plan.  I actually spent my birthday with my friends, which was pretty nice.  First off, I had a great dinner with a dear friend of mine, but when she had to go, I ended up going with my 2 remaining bandmates/brothers and had a few glasses of mountain dew and shot the breeze with them.  Oooo, that reminds me of another BIG topic to speak of in a second.  Christmas was spent starting off visiting my grandparents at their rest home for a bit, then I got to cleaning my flat which killed the rest of my pre-Christmas time day.  Christmas eve was mainly spent doing what I set out to do, which was do my annual Christmas movie marathon, but that was interrupted by going to my dad’s house to spend time with him, his wife, my sister, her husband, and my two nephews.  It was very awesome, but I had to cut the visit short in order to attend 11pm caroling followed up by midnight Traditional Latin Sung Mass.  I got home about the time that I thought I would, which was just before 2am on Christmas Day, and posted a very lengthy post about Santa Claus and love on Facebook and that caused me to go to bed just before 4am.  It was a long day.  Christmas Day went on earlier than I thought as my brain only wanted to sleep 5 hours but wake up super sleepy needing more sleep.  Stupid brain!  But the good thing is that I completed watching my 8 Christmas films that I set out to watch, plus some bonus shows and films!  So, overall, not like I planned the 2 out of 3 holidays in this month, but not bad either. 

Onto a diverted topic from above.  I’ll just put this on front street.  I think my band is dead.  The band that I, personally, was a part of for 11 years.  The band that existed in one form or another for more than 20 years.  Yep, that one.  Dead.  All over some petty crap too!  Here’s the cliff notes of my version.  Our bass player developed a bad case of alcoholism.  He was forced to quit the band, and the guitar player decided to go scorched earth with him.  I was on board until we practiced with a potential replacement player and realized that I was in effect abandoning a man who had turned from a friend, to a bandmate, and a brother.  On top of the bassist issue, the guitarist brought a guy into the band 3 years ago that is not musically talented at all and has too many projects going on at once anyway to be in the band without even asking the other 3 of us if we even wanted him in there.  I put up with for 3 years before passively-aggressively making my feelings known that this guy sucked and brought tension to the band until said guitarist put it bluntly to “quit pussyfooting around.  Either straight up say it or shut the fuck up.” So, I said it knowing it would hurt both of their feelings (it did), and then less than a month later the bassist situation came to a head.  Anyway, the day after the practice with the possible replacement, guitarist comes over for our usual lunchtime talk “guns blazing” ready to talk smack about his now former best friend and when I said that I wanted to reconcile with the guy and get rid of his musically untalented friend from our band, he flipped his lid big time and annulled our friendship and the band as well.  He went on a week later to say that in the time away from us, he’s lived a peaceful life free of bigotry, misogyny, and other stuff because we haven’t spoken as a band.  Now, let me point out that while outlandish things were said, they were all for shock value and stupidity.  Secondly, this guy had gone completely off the rails into far-left extremism and is an atheist.  Reason I mention these things is that when the off-color jokes got too intense for him, I politely asked him “ok, we’ll stop being stupid this way if you stop using the Lord’s name in vain.” Which of course he didn’t do and actually ramped up his GD’s and his constant Catholic bashing, and protestant bashing.  That’s not to mention the fact that he couldn’t understand my stance on touchy subjects like abortion, gay rights, transgenderism, and everything else that the far left, and even the left claim as reasons that Christians are bigots.  So, I let him know that I still loved him and for as much as he didn’t appreciate our poor taste joking, I felt peace too not having the blasphemy in my life anymore.  He said nothing after his little soapbox diatribe.  But that got me thinking.  This guy is a horrible person.  He’s a narcissist, a bigot, and a freeloader among other things.  I’m sure I lost friendships or had a bad light shown on me because of him.  We were the best of friends for 20 years and I put up with his shenanigans for that long because I truly loved him.  It was only after this what could be permanent fracture of our friendship that I realized just how bad of a person that he is.  Let me say that I’m not just talking trash because we’re on the outs.  I came to the realization after he basically told our bassist to go F himself.  Here’s why I think he’s a narcissist.  This article here is where I’ll point out his stuff from the 6 points it mentions in the section “Signs and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder”:

1. Grandiose sense of self-importance – case and point, him bringing in 2 different guys into our band without even asking us, hating most of the music we’d suggest to only play his horrible music. 
2. Lives in a fantasy world that supports their delusions of grandeur – This dude has a bad problem with love.  He is obsessed with his now ex-girlfriend and had this grand fantasy of this life that they were going to have.  He also hits on women no matter if they are married or not.
3. Needs constant praise and admiration – Oh man… on stage?!  Like you read about, this is him!  He’s suicidal and severely depressed as it is, but is always in need of constant attention and praise.
4. Sense of entitlement – Yep.  Kinda feels like this is a judgmental thing, but ties right in with what he does.
5. Exploits others without guilt or shame – oh man.  THIS one always gets me with him. Two glaring examples of this that personally involved me were 1: this dude just invited himself to my best friend’s wedding in Salt Lake City, Utah.  He said he wanted to go because he always wanted to see Utah and just assumed that it would be ok for him to go with me.  Of course, I’d be the asshole if I told him “Dude, you aren’t even that good of friends with him…” so he went with me.  Terrible.  2: While on a cross country trip (that his mom paid for, so that may skew some point of view on this… maybe?), we planned on stopping in two different places on the way back home from Annapolis, Maryland to El Paso, Texas.  One of those stops was with our mutual best friend in St. Louis.  He wanted us to go.  Cool. 2^nd stop we thought of was the greater DFW area.  I have a few friends and family there and he knew of one of them and insisted that we contact her to see about staying at her place.  Who the F does that?!  I felt so embarrassed, but considering that his mom flew us up to Baltimore and we had an all expenses paid roadtrip back down to El Paso, I felt guilted into doing something that personally I would NEVER do.  “…They don’t think twice about taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends.” As the article says. THAT right there to the T!  Of course, I did it and felt horrible to ask my friend if we could stay with her, especially since she barely knew him.  As a side note, the bastard had the balls to ask her if he and his kids could stay there a year later when they drove up and did the trip again!  Really, man.  That’s just wrong in my opinion.  Terrible!
6. Frequently demeans, intimidates, bullies, or belittles others – Oh man.  Here we go!  The far-left opinion of his?  THIS.  Very much THIS.  Oh, you’re not an “ally”?  oh!  You’re a Catholic?! Let me go out of my way to shame you, call you out, belittle you, and show you how I’m right.  This doesn’t even end there! ANY opinion that contradicts his?  Wrong.  Automatically wrong.  WTF!

The reason that I call him a bigot, by the way, ties into the narcissism.  He believes so much that his opinions on everything are right.  There is never any room for debate.  The one that always affected me is my strong faith in God.  Oh man, that was like lighting a can of petrol for him.  He would not only not respect my beliefs, but he would go out of his way to disrespect mine.  There are a lot of other examples, but that’s one right off the bat that I can point to.  Anyway, he’s out of my life now, and thank God for it.  He actually did the rest of us a favor.  We’re so much better off without him in our lives.  But with that said, the band is now dead. 

Now to a new topic that I just realized no more than 3 days ago.  I’m finally emotionally over my last ex-girlfriend.  Thank GOD for that!  Reason I know is that my heart no longer hurts when I even think of her name and now for sure when I see pictures of her that she either sent me or of us together.  Let me stop there and say that I wasn’t looking at those pictures, but when they’d come up on my google photos, my heart would sink, and I’d just feel like crying.  It was terrible!  Well, as of a few days ago, not anymore!  I’ve been going into my google photos to retrieve pictures of myself to post on an awesome group on Facebook that I’ve joined within this month and let me tell you that the compliments that I’ve been getting have been pretty awesome!  I have very low self-esteem, so to be getting compliments on my eyes, smile, etc.?  man, it’s been awesome.  If you wanna know a secret, I’m actually pretty attracted to one of the members of this group.  Her and I have a lot in common.  We are both self-professed nerds, physical movie collectors, love sports, we’re both really shy, and best of all, she’s beautiful.  We’ve been going back and forth on the threads in this group page since I’ve joined in there and even last night right away complimented a photo of myself in a suit by calling me handsome and saying a line that I always say, “I’m just telling the truth.”  HOLY SMOKES!  The only thing is that I’m in far west Texas and she’s in South Carolina.  We are really far apart geographically.  I would love to send her a private message and start to talk to her that way, but; A) I don’t want her to think that I’m just another guy “sliding into her DMs” to try and get her to do immoral things. And B) I don’t want to get my hopes up to think that if situation A doesn’t happen, and we really do connect even more, something may come out of it.  I know this is going to sound like I’m a jerk, but I’ve been burned twice in my offerings/attempts to move out to where my girlfriends were only to get my heart crushed by them both at the last minute.  What if me and this mystery woman connect more to a romantic interest side of things if I were to send this private message?  The best way to get to where she’s at is by plane and air travel is not only really expensive, but right now is a crapshoot at best with all of the labor shortages and COVID-19 madness going on.  Not that I’m putting the cart in front of the horse here, but considering that I’m not willing to completely drop my life to move way over there, would she be willing to move from there?  She’s not even from there and I don’t know how much family she does have in South Carolina if any, but that’s still a valid question.  Additionally, what if further feelings other than what I’m calling a crush on both sides develop?  I’ve always been of the mindset, even more so now as a practicing Catholic to discern marriage in a relationship.  If I’m not doing that, then I’m just wasting my time.  I do not want a relationship for, how would I say this, the physical benefits of said relationship.  That’s not what I’m interested in.  I want to find a woman to help me get to heaven with.  Who will grow with me in my faith.  Who will love me and desire me for such and desire the same things that I do.  As a practicing Catholic, that’s what I should be looking for.  Anyway, I hope I don’t come across like I’m already with this beautiful woman or anything, I’m just going through the possibilities of things if they were to happen.  Good thing though is that I know I’m desirable to at least a few women out there and my heart has finally let go of my past again. 

With that said, I hope all is well in your world, my friends!  Let’s end 2021 on a positive note and go into 2022 ready to rock!  Wear your mask, get vaccinated, and if you’re already vaccinated, GET BOOSTED!  And while you’re at it, start loving people.  There’s already too much hate in this world!

I’m Still Here and Happy Holidays!

Well well!  Guess who’s still here!

Hello and welcome to the one more day closer to winter on the northern hemisphere!  Holy smokes guys.  I can’t believe it’s been since June that I have posted anything.  143 days, not that I counted or anything.  My life, to say the least, has been pretty chaotic.  I’ll give you the cliff’s notes here:

• Well, sadly but thankfully at the same time, we had to move my grandparents to a permanent nursing facility due to their declining health.  Honestly, we couldn’t take care of them like we need to, and they deserve to be taken care of by ourselves, so my dad did a lot of the major lifting to make this happen.  Thank God that it did!
• I’m still making Catholic podcasts via YouTube my main source of media watching/listening.  I’ve actually given a very DEEP dive into my favorite channel “Pints with Aquinas”.  Not only do I love to watch Matt Fradd’s videos, but I think I actually like Fr. Gregory Pine O.P.’s videos even more. 
• My band was rocking n’ rolling until quite recently when a situation that had been a long time coming finally came to fruition.  Our bass player had to quit to take care of himself.  He’s not actually doing a very good job of taking care of himself, but at least the temptation to ruin his life is not because of us anymore.  Long story.
• With all that’s been going on, I’ve slacked it on my health.  What’s new, right? 

Ok!  I think that covers the majority of it.  I’m sure I’m missing a few things here and there.  I would like to talk about those 4 bullet points at length and maybe I will in the future.  I really wanted to say a few more things with this post though. 

First off, I’m still here!!!!  I’ve seen along the time that I’ve gotten a few more follows and a few likes on previous posts and I appreciate it!  In case you haven’t really noticed, I’m not writing on this blog to make any money off of it, or influence you in any way (well, maybe religiously every now and again), or teach you anything.  Really, all I’m doing with this and all I’ve ever wanted to do with this blog is to write out my thoughts, feelings, tell the tales of situations that I can’t help but to share due to significance or other reasons, and just to get things off my shoulders as to not be a burden on my mind and soul.  Believe me, there’s been a lot of times in the past 143 days that I’ve wanted and or needed to put fingers to keyboard to type out things that have happened in my life, but life keeps getting in the way and I run out of time each day to do it.  I figure that I had an opportunity now, so here we are!

Secondly, and this is going to be the main story of this post, my favorite time of the year has arrived!!!!!  Yes, November 1^st (All Saints Day) to January 6^th (Feast of The Epiphany) is my favorite time of year.  We get rid of the horribleness that is “Halloween” with all of its celebration of sin, and we get into honoring the saints, remembering our loved ones, then all of the things that follow.  I mean, you know!  Haha!  Why am I telling you as if you’re not aware, right?  Point is days like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve make me the happiest.  Here’s the kicker though.  I can’t remember if I’ve ever posted about this or not, but I LOVE to spend those holidays alone.  Well, let me be honest, I love to spend every day alone, but I really make those holidays an emphasis to try to spend them alone if I can.  Now, I know that is contrary to most of everybody’s thoughts on those days, but me being the most introverted INFJ person you’ll probably ever meet, and its accompanying strong isolophilia makes me want to spend those days at home and alone.  It’s not a sad thing for me, mind you, it’s a joyous time for me.

Here’s my rundown of each day:

• Thanksgiving:  I love to wake up at 6am to get myself situated to get ready to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on my local NBC affiliate.  It’s honestly the next thing after the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest that I look forward to in the calendar year.  No joke!  I love watching the balloons, new and old, take flight going down the parade route, and seeing the floats, new and old, make their way down the street as well.  I’m usually drinking coffee and eggnog while it’s going on and about the middle of it, I set up my Peanuts Christmas Tree and small decorations in and around it.  The Christmas spirit really hits me then.  Once the parade ends at 10am, I jump in the shower while the local parade, which God bless them they try, is leaps and bounds extremely inferior to Macy’s plays on the television.  About an hour into said parade is when I remember that the Detroit game has started, so I switch the tv to that and start to prepare my dinner.  Let me tell you, for a single guy living alone, the seasoned turkey breast in a bag that goes straight from the freezer to the oven is the best thing ever!  It’s so much easier than dealing with the whole bird.  And let’s be honest, unless you’re crushing turkey legs at Disney, the breast meat is what you’re going to be eating anyway.  That takes about 2-3 hours, so I usually eat my turkey/homemade garlic mashed potatoes/corn/Hawaiian roll dinner during my beloved Dallas Cowboys game and end my day listening to Christmas Music as I enjoy my first night with the lighted decorations adorning my living room in the flat.

• Christmas Eve/Christmas:  Christmas for me, starts on Christmas Eve.  If I’m not given the day off from work, I’m hoping for the early release or notice that we’ve been given the day off.  If I do have the day off, I start it off by starting my favorite Christmas movies.  In no particular order, they are:  Batman Returns, Gremlins, Friday After Next, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas, A Christmas Story, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and The Polar Express.  I know what you’re thinking.  Batman?  A Friday movie?  Harold and Kumar?  Really, dude!  YES!  Really!  Those all happen during or around Christmas!  I love it!  They put me in such a good mood!  I make sure to nap out a bit because I love to go to Midnight High Mass at my local FSSP parish, but in order to get there and have my usual area in the pews, I must arrive around 10 or so at night.  Mass ends about 1:30am, so I get home at 2am on Christmas Day feeling super happy and blessed.  Sleep comes, and when I wake up in the morning, the film festival continues, and I tend to like to end the night by watching The Polar Express.  Actually, I go with the traditional Christmas movies at the end and go off-beat ones first.  In any event, I love ending Christmas Day’s night with the peace and love I feel due to Christ’s love and the warm feelings Christmas gives me.

• New Year’s Eve/Day: This is another great day that I love spending alone.  The party, for me, starts in the afternoon when I put the film Four Rooms on.  This film takes place on a New Year’s Eve and it’s a very wacky movie.  It’s right up my alley!  Once that finishes, I start watching CNN’s coverage of the world ringing in the new year.  I’ve had a tradition, about 20 years and counting, about ordering a pizza, getting or making some buffalo hot wings for dinner.  This is a must.  It’s not NYE without it.  With that being said, a tradition I incorporated about 7 years ago or so when I was trying a sober NYE (I know, I was crazy) was to buy a bottle of Welch’s Sparkling Grape Juice.  I usually switch the channels between CNN, ABC, and NBC watching their NYE specials while drinking various alcoholic beverages.  When the clock strikes midnight, I drink said bottle of sparkling grape juice and as of last year, the only sparkling wine/champagne that I think I’ll drink which is Asti – Rivata.  I can’t speak enough about it.  It’s available here at a relatively low price, but boy is it flavorful!  Granted, I have never had Cristal or Dom, but still! This bottle is awesome!  So, anyway, the texts and social media posts go out, and then I start watching the NYE coverage from Las Vegas, Nevada.  Their fireworks display ends about 1:10am, and I call it a night after that.  New Year’s Day starts off with Low Mass, as it’s a holy day of obligation, then I generally relax and get ready for what the new year will bring me.

So, there you go my friends!  I’m still here and my favorite time has come!  I hope we all make it a good one!