The Joy of Christmas (NOT)

   The twinkling lights upon the tree hold no joy this year for me. The gifts were bought with little a thought placed there below the tree. No smiling faces no warm embraces no cheer and no glee. The day had become so humdrum just another day to me. I would love to get back on the holiday track to that long lost child that once was in me.

   Just seems I have lost that Christmas spark don't get me wrong I still love getting the cards and hearing from friends and family. Its nice to know they think of me during the holidays. I just do not have that Christmas spirit that awe of all the sparkling flashing decorations the hustle and bustle in the stores is more of an irritant were I once loved it all.    And here are maybe the reasons I have come to this point?

   Christmas was a big deal with my Mom the decorating the special foods that are only made at that time of year. She always tried to make it such a special time. I guess at the time I really did not notice just how much effort she put into it. She would often shop all year long to get the best deals and when I would tell her I was going to buy something would discourage me from it knowing she had already bought it and had it hidden away waiting to be wrapped and placed under the tree the next year.
   This will be the 2nd Christmas without her and it is not getting any easier as people tell me it should. Maybe it will for me 10 years down the road but it will not not be this year. As I set and gaze at the tree with ornaments she made on it all I can do is feel a sort of emptiness and wanting to go back to those days past. 
   I remember my first Christmas away from home while in the Army I was feeling very alone even with all the other people around me. I realized just how important those family gatherings around the holidays had meant to me. It was not the gifts or even the food I missed it was the people.  People who knew me and people who at times I wanted to get as far away from as I could and live my own life. Well there I was getting my wish on the other side of the world in Germany living my own life and it was not what I thought it would be. My sister had sent me a little 2 foot Christmas Tree that I had put up in my room. This would be another time in my life I sat and eyed the lights only to wish I was home with the rest of the nutty family. That was a hard time but nothing to that first Christmas without my Mom not being able to at least call her and say Merry Christmas.
  The next 8 years I was in the Army I never made it home for Christmas. It got less and less painful and most of the time I stayed drunk or stoned through the holidays parting with my friends going out to clubs and leaving home and family behind. I was making a life for myself  or so I thought. We would often get  large group together and invade some Hotel and stay for the Holidays whooping it up and in my case acting happy. We would exchange gifts and of course there was a lot of drinking I am assuming here but I think many felt as I did and the drinking was our way of hiding just how much we missed home.  I called my Mom one New Years drunk off my ass not thinking of the time difference and woke her up. She was happy to hear from me but stopped me a few times and said remember who you are talking to seems my drunk ass was spurting a few (BLEEP) words not thinking about it. I apologized said Merry Christmas Happy New Year hung up and went back to drinking I swear I did not even remember the call until it showed up on my Hotel bill at check out. And would not know just what was said etc until years later when she brought it up. SORRY MOM! <3
   Many who have never been in the service do not understand that even if you have not seen combat when you come home you never feel the same. It is like the rest of the world moved on and changed and you missed out on it. When I got out and moved back to Michigan my home town had changed so much. The old school I went to was torn down the dime store was closed as were many other stores and places I knew growing up. It had all changed and to me it was like it happened in a flash. For those who were there it happened a little bit at a time. The Nieces and Nephews had grown so much my Parents had aged my friends were married and had kids and all this happened while I was away I and was a bit of a shock to have it all come at me at once.  I felt out of place like I did not belong anymore and in fact I did not it was like starting over. Also I had changed to those I left behind they expected me to be the same person I was when I left but I was no, there was way to many experiences that had happened to me that they could never understand.
   In the service the people around you become your family and they deal with the same things you do pretty much day in and day out so they get much of what you are thinking and feeling. I do not know what I expected when I came home but I just felt left behind out of place and not part of the world I had once known so well.
   Those years of living on my own and doing it my way became a brick wall when I returned home. My parents did not agree with my new found way of looking at life and we butted heads many times. It came to a point I had to get away and once again be on my own living life on my terms. I packed my things and hit the road not really knowing were i was headed just anywhere but there. I lived in my car for a long time then landed in Pittsburgh were I started a new life. Once again I felt the need for space from my family but always in the back of my mind missing those days when we all gathered together for the holidays. So I drank and drugged to mask to myself and the world I needed those people in my life. Try as I might I never really fit into the world I was living in in Pittsburgh I just sort of moved along with the crowd and tried to act like I was part of it all.
   It took a few years and falling on my ass broke and alone to get it through my head I needed to get home and start to build a relationship with my family again. I moved back and tried but something was missing and that something was me. In all those years away I had morphed and changed but never really found who I was. I had mimicked and emulated others around me their music their likes and dislikes but never really becoming or finding me. I always wondered what people meant when they talked about finding themselves it sounded sort of stupid to me. I mean look in the mirror and there you are is what I thought. I looked in the mirror but what was looking back was not me it was the me I had put on for the world and it would still take many years and even to this day to work on who the hell am I? 
   The last great Christmas I remember  was the last year my sister Debbie and all the family were together. We lost her a few years later to cancer and since then Christmas just is not the same. Debbie was a mix of emotions at times I wanted to strangle her and at times I wanted to spend time laughing and joking with her. She was a complicated person but also the life of the party and had this light about her and even when she pissed me off could turn around and make me laugh. Yes once she was gone I never got that Christmas spirit again. My Mom tried over the years to bring us all together but for one reason or another it never worked out.
   Funny how in life or at least mine it is true you never know what you have until its gone and that you can never really go home. So I say Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas and I smile but just not feeling it, not feeling that child inside i think he is off someplace pouting in the corner for days gone by.