the Scrooge in all of us...

"It's Christmas time, the season of perpetual hope!"... yes Mrs. MacAllister it is, but you also left your son at home while you vacationed in Paris!

It happens to the best of us, the holiday season arrives and normally people instantaneously become nicer, or most do anyway. I am one of those. I'm a giver. If I have a dollar, I spend it and share... it's great, but also a wrath since I tend to be the one who buys rounds after rounds when at the bar, but some people don't seem to reciprocate.

I tried to force the spirit unto me by putting up the Christmas lights on the roof, dressing up the house in holiday decor and putting on some holiday colored sweaters. I even went to a friends house who incidentally use up about 1/2 the states electricity resources for the winter and helped them decorate their house... it looks pretty darn good, especially the elves playing baseball in the yard. That trick of imposing the spririt on me worked for about 3 days..

Then I tried to go shopping with a friend to get her presents... it just got me depressed, but also I have realized that I am becoming more and more in hate with large crowds of people with no direction, and my legs hurt (I'm getting old-er ... soon approaching 30)

This year was the first year, since I can remember, that my family didn't get gifts from me for Christmas. It's the times... but aside from the material I have lost a bit of the sense of one of my favorite holidays ever. Is it because gift giving is the meaning of the holiday to me..? I don't know really, but I didn't care to be much a part of the festivities besides wanting to get inebriated and that couldnt really happen either because I was ill. All this together wanted to create a Scrooge in me... or bring out the Scrooge in me.

Alas, the holiday has passed and I survived... the Christmas tree remains in my parent's home and it won't come down until after January 6th, 3 Kings Day. Normally we would get presents on that day, but not Gold, Frankincense or Myrrh... this year I hope its a salary.

So this season of hope was more a season of dope... It went by with a meagerness, not too eventful and a bit depressing. At least the sun came out today and well, tomorrow is another day but hopefully in a years time Santa will be back around with more surprises.

Tick, tock, tick, tock....

Those things that you encounter day in and day out that remind you of something so vividly: an event... or person.... or experience.
Its like a bomb has gone off and the vividness of the memory gradually depletes, creating the down slope of a bell curve.
Although sometimes, as is the situation at hand, the encounter providing the memory is stagnant, causing what would be seen as a traffic jam at the top of the bell curve on the way down. The memory replays over and over again, and although the memory is beautiful, it causes for a bit of discomfort and anger due to the steadfast effort to disassociate, in hopes that the light would turn green or that the vehicle would grow wings.
Nevertheless, uninvited memories, beautiful or not, are a forced way of reflecting, which in turn is good for the soul. For that matter, I will continue to sit at the top of the bell curve, and nurture my soul.


Free Write @ Chapman University Library.