Home For The Holidays

I find myself back in the ATL and I have to say, it's very odd being back. I know I've been gone less than a year, but it feels like a foreign country to me now. The flight East was bumpy. I got in, had dinner with Mom, and then met up with TNI and a buddy of his. It was so good to see him again. I've really, really missed having him around. I know that's stupid. It's not like I haven't talked to him on the phone practically every day since he's been gone, but it's just not the same. I find myself really relying on having certain people around and when they're not, my life just seems to come a little unhinged. TNI is one of those people, so yeah, I was really glad to see him again... Today was kinda fucked up. My mom and I went over to my brother's place for dinner and it was a whole extended family kind of affair. Parents, step-parents, grandparents, siblings, babies, kids, dogs, close friends, just your basic family chaos. It was a bit of sensory overload for me. I partially blame my jetlag, but that wasn't entirely it. Fortunately, my brother and sister-in-law got a new Italian Greyhound puppy a couple of weeks ago, and Ella latched onto me the minute I walked in the door. She is too cute and gave me a reason to be semi-anti-social. At one point I sat down in a big cushiony chair and she curled up in my arms, put her head on my chest, and went to sleep. That gave me an excuse not to move for like an hour and so I just watched the mayhem unfold around me. I was the eye in the family hurricane... I also got to thinking, which was prolly not a good thing. This is a bad time of year for me to get all reflective, but I did it anyway. So here are some of my thoughts on that... Why is it that people don't realize how horrible they are to the people closest to them? Every day we do things that only hurt those we love. Some are minor slights. An unkind word, a rolling of the eyes. Some are more blatant. Lies, half-truths, things left unsaid. Arguements over petty, stupid shit. I'm as guilty as anyone. I've lied to get what I want. Kept secrets from those I love - sometimes to protect them, sometimes to protect myself. I think a lot of the time we don't do these things maliciously. They just happen. We say we're going to do something, and we don't. We make promises with the best of intentions, but deep down know we can't keep them. We tell people what we think they want to hear... I want to be successful, but I don't want a pile of bodies and a list of people I fucked over to follow me where I want to go. Is that even possible in this day and age or are we really playing a zero sum game? Nobody wins unless somebody loses? I hope we (or at the very least I) have not come to that point... It's the same when it comes to relationships. Of course I want the fairy tale. Someone to live happily ever after with. I know I'm prolly going to have to go through bad relationships to get to that point, but what I don't want is a slew of conquests; a bunch of nights of random, meaningless sex with pretty guys who won't remember my name and who I wouldn't be able to pick out of a line-up a month or two down the road. I've never been very trusting of men, and have been very selevctive of the guys I sleep with (hence the reason I've only been with 4 guys in the last 8 years), but lately the temptation to just let go and take some of the pretty people home with me for a night has really been there. I need to get away from that line of thinking. It's not going to lead anywhere good and that's not that girl I want to be (or become). I've always had a sorta "rule" about not getting involved with married men, but have looked at girlfriends as obstacles to be overcome. I'm thinking karma may frown upon that line of thinking, so I'm going to try and avoid the "involved" ones from now on too. If you're single and available, gimme a call, but if you're lying to someone else by being with me, then go home. Be a man and go back to your fucking girlfriend. If/when you break up with her, gimme a call... I'm also having some weird issues when it comes to my friends these days. I've always been insanely loyal to those close to me. Loyal to a fault many would say. I've burned some bridges in the past and have recently been on a quest to rebuild some of them, to varying success. The question is, why do I bother? Some of these friendships have fallen apart because of things I've done, others just unraveled on their own. Should I learn to just let people go? If they don't want to be a part of my life anymore, why should I be the one to fight to salvage things? I don't have an answer to that. Maybe it's just in my nature to fight for the things/people that are important to me. Necede nedede. I've always had a soft spot for lost causes, even when it's a losing battle that the other side doesn't want me to fight... It's amazing the fucked up route your thoughts can take when you have a tiny, warm dog napping on your chest. I'm not sure how I got on this train of thought, but it was very odd to be thinking these things while the Christmas chaos raged around me... Which is not to say that it made me unhappy. I had a good day. I was maybe just a bit too over-reflective. This season does that to me... Still it's been good to see family and friends. I haven't been posting my happy thoughts lately. Shame on me. So that's my happy thing for today. I'm going to try and be a better person to those people that I love. My family and my few close friends. May we not fuck up each other's lives too badly...

"Never give up. Never surrender." -- Tim Allen - "Galaxy Quest"