I apologize in advance if this post is disjointed and confusing. It’s time for my annual Christmas free association.
Merry Christmas, 2004. My favorite Christmas movie is Bad Santa with Billy Bob Thornton. It was in the theaters last year at this time and it’s great. While wearing the Santa outfit, Thornton picks up a character played by Lauren Graham (“Gilmore Girls” mom). She has a Santa fantasy and when they are shown having sex, she’s chanting, “F–k me, Santa! F–k me, Santa!” It recalled my personal fantasy which is similar, only replace the name “Santa” with “Jesus.” I actually saw this movie with a Lutheran minister who could have gotten lucky that night, I guess, but somehow it didn’t happen.
This really is free association. Speaking of Jesus, one curse I say when I’m really angry (but never out loud) is “Jesus f–king Christ on a stick!” I’ve been using that one for a couple of years, and I was hugely gratified to hear it uttered by Cartman on the latest South Park episode. Kyle is chiding Cartman for not caring about Christmas, and Cartman sputters, “Christ on a stick!” Maybe it’ll become mainstream, but probably not.
Today was my day off from the restaurant and I’m about to go to bed out of sheer boredom. This has got to be the last Christmas season I spend like this: nowhere to go, no one to hang out with. I’m considering cheap meaningless sex just for something to do. Shall I hit a bar? Pick up some lonely guy? Call it charity work?
What is the magic of Christmas I imagine used to be there? Some illusion of childhood materialism or part of the delusion nurtured by society to get us all to settle down and get married and have children and be miserable? Is there some spirit I’m supposed to “discover,” some healing that will take place as soon as I stop insisting that I don’t believe? That’s the catch. They say Jesus saves or that miracles happen or whatever, but only if you believe. We have to plug into the Matrix willingly, otherwise we get nothing but the same Bing Crosby song played over and over and over like a ululation emptied of emotion.
I know there’s a restart button. There are all kinds of ways to end your life and dying is only one of them. Some of us won’t change until we are finally, mind-numbingly pierced through with an agony so complete that it blocks out everything we have managed to accomplish. An ecstasy of fumbling towards the life I want, I want, I need, I thought I wanted, I tried to have, maybe not, maybe this isn’t where I belong at all.
I’ve lost all trust in my hunches. The truth of my reactions is so corrupted with the terror of intimacy that I no longer know if a gut aversion is a good call or the binding fear paralyzing me again. How does one re-learn instinct? Maybe it’s time to let the shell break. Maybe the soft, vulnerable goo within has alchemized into the rubbery hardness that won’t break when it hits the ground. I’m tired of trying not to let the cracks get bigger.
