The holidays are coming, need I say more??

So here I am..... can't imagine how I'm going to sludge through the madness of constant seasons greetings, joyous smiling innocents hallucinating on brotherly love (which they quickly forget the next 11 months of the year), totally high-on-happiness- sharing-caring overbearing tiders of good will, tete-a-tetes of togetherness all over the telly, peace, hope and love-schmove everywhere.

So I'm a grinch. Shoot me. But I really can't tolerate this time of year, it just underscores my lonely status. And I am truly hoping this is not some psuedo-dating-site in sheeps clothing, but just an honest space to come to with my heavy heart and empty life. I hope I don't have to put up with cheerful little missives like, "this too shall pass"... "awww, you're just not trying hard enough".... "it's always darkest before the dawn"....." we get stronger in the broken places"...... can i just gag now??? You are forewarned, post that treacle under my thread and you will just be ignored.

Anyone out there feel, like I, that we were just born under some dark cloud? That "the secret" is a bunch of hooey and for a myriad of reasons, we are here, alone, after a lifetime of abuse or suffering and can't seem to fight our way back into what others deem is normal or right or real.

I think I just need to embrace my loneliness and try to come to terms with it, stop wishing for friends, stop searching for them, stop trying to assimiliate and insinuate myself into others lives. It hasn't happened for the last 60 years and no miracle is going to happen today or tomorrow. I'm a lonely, lonely, lonely old fart and it's best to just accept it and try to deal with it without these depressions. I do believe we are only as happy as we make up our mind to be, and that is all I want to achieve here. I want to learn from like minded people who have become successful in living in their solitary status. I am hoping they are here. I am hoping to stop being this depressive zombie in my own personal abyss and yes, put my mind to accepting my fate, this is it, this is what I have, now try to take what little I have and use it, make it work and be grateful for the grace of the silence around me.... it's music can be just as sweet as any other.

Oh: and p.s.? no suggestions about going on anti-depressive medicines please? Out of the question. I have been unemployed for over a year now, have no access to medical attention and I do not want to seek out help from the social service agencies that haven't been at all successful in helping one whit in the past. I don't want a cure. I need to come to terms with what is, not with what I dream of.

Hi deirdre

So you don't like Christmas? I used to love it, but it's not the same anymore.

Anyway, welcome to ALL

I can't stand nor do I even want to face the next seven weeks.... someone pullllllleeeeze just put me in a coma, let me be a vegetable for the next two months, totally unaware of everyone else in their holiday frenzy. I know it sounds mean spirited....I too used to love the holidays, used to decorate like a madwoman, winning prizes and contests left and right for my displays and arrangements..... it's just nothing with no one to share it with, no friends or family. What makes it doubly worse is it is almost impossible to even find someplace to volunteer, seems the rotary clubs, the junior leaguers, this or that civic group gets a stranglehold on the area soup kitchens, Salvation Army and nursing homes...even my local hospital won't accept my offer to help on Christmas or New Years Day because I am not an offical volunteer and haven't gone through the necessary orientation. I swear, maybe I should just hop in my car, round up some bums, hobos and homeless people and try to find someplace where we can just get stinking drunk and pass out together. Sounds like a plan.

I will wait for your car to pull up.

Hey Deirdre!

You seem like a really interesting, funny person! I think volunteering during the holidays is a great idea, if you're having trouble finding opportunities, check out Bill Clinton's book "Giving" which provides a lot of ways for people to contribute. As for the hobo round-up, after you pick up Disconnected, I'm next in line to join the party! =)

Sounds perfect if you guys can stand an old fart-almost-60 year old who is on track for bag-ladydom. We can meet at the Port Authority at 178th where plenty of wandering lost souls congregrate. Fork the chestnuts roasting by the fireside, we'll find ourselves a bodega in the Heights, stock up on rot gut wine, knock over a pretzel cart and eat alfresco while the pidgeons vie for our pretzel crumbs. Ahhhhhh, I love the taste of stale hot pretzels on the westside!!!!!

Hi

Count me in for the fun.

wow if these people are as half as serious as they sound perhaps you wont be alone for Christmas afterall!

Besides, uhmn, you could always put an ad out in Craigslist and see what happens. I've kind of emailed a few ppl from there and they seem ok so far.

Crazy idea, but its so crazy that it just might work O_O

LOL...... I doubt anyone was truely serious, it is silly banter.... those others aren't in the NYC area either...so it's just fun talk, pie-in-the-sky, if this were a less imperfect world, wouldn't it be wonderful to do silly and spontaneous things like this?? But I can seriously see myself wandering down the snaking, descending walkway to the 8th ave A train, putting my crazy over sized striped xmas hat on, the one that is outrageously 2 feet long and wired, you can bend it to pose on your head like a loopy question mark.... I'll sit on the cold cement path and sing Christmas carols, hopefully get someone to throw spare change into a hat...... if the pickings aren't good, maybe just take the subway down to the Port Authority Bus terminal at 42nd and maybe even find another worthless being that god has discarded to talk to....never know. LOL

I have done the craigslist searching for friend routine for years. Used to put out ads in the platonic section, which in my area wasn't populated by many people interested in anything platonic at all. Funny how you say you are a woman, seeking another woman for a friend, and still the hormones-on-overdrive guys send out pictures of their equipment. What is wrong with these people? Over the span of 5 years, I got two replies from women, started email friendships, who when it came to actually meeting, blew me off... I once met another woman who startling was a bitter, angry ranter with such a caustic and complaining personality, I could see why no one could stand to be in her presence. I got various, sporadic replies from people who only wanted to bar hop, look for guys and that's not my scene. I'm not looking for cheap and tawdry one night stands to ease the emptiness.....and don't want to hang out with people who do. I'm more the artsy-fartsy esoteric eclectic type into epigenetics, anthropology, world literature, french films, poetry...not too many people out there anymore who even have a library card.
In the evening, when every sound lies sleeping, when the doors are shut and my soul is wide open, memories, like quiet visitors arrive and sometimes they are comforting, other times they just underscore all I had lost, but at least for me, memories are all that seem to populate the landscape of my life.

Last year, on craigs, I put it out there I would volunteer anywhere, here I am, willing to work and be of service...nothing. not one reply. go figure..... i dunno... maybe i'll trek over to the senior center/senior housing agency down off Fort Washington Ave.... it's not too far from the bridge...only problem is I don't speak spanish and just about everyone there does. we'll see.

hmmmmm, this gives me an idea for a thread topic...........

hi Deidre and everyone,

i get conflicted when the season approaches. i do get occasional warm fuzzy feelings, but then the reality hits me. thanksgiving and christmas won't be anything special. i will buy my parents gifts and it won't matter either way how much i spent. i will slink into the chair at starbucks and be continuously tortured by the endless parade of giggly girls and giddy guys and lip-locked couples.

every year i have volunteered my butt off, with a charitable organization. but this year i have zero energy for it. and i have fed the homeless many times, not just the holidays, but again i have lost any bit of strength i once had to help others.

i do love the decorations. i do like getting a live pine tree i decorate and gaze at for hours, by myself of course.

i can tolerate some of the music. i just don't like how everything is so disgustingly childcentric, being i am child free and not a fan of kids (sorry if i offend with this statement-i am just being honest). the over-commercialism of the season especially with it being started way too early this year just gets on my nerves.

i just wish the occasional warm fuzzies i get would line up with having a happy, cheery christmas in reality.

deirdre said:

I can't stand nor do I even want to face the next seven weeks.... someone pullllllleeeeze just put me in a coma, let me be a vegetable for the next two months, totally unaware of everyone else in their holiday frenzy.

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I feel the exact same way. The holiday season is my least favorite time of year.

Woundedbird...i so hear you..... so much of the holidays are disgustingly commercial...so many people seem to be robots, zombies, buying into what the media endlessly streams into our consciousness.... and it's all about keeping up with the trends, the Joneses, our relatives, buying the best present, the biggest present, to prove we love them more, we love them better....jeesh. what a rat race.

My ennui stems from a deeper spot though.... yes, it is disconcerting that the holidays are all show, glitter and fluff....but it is just the endless pounding into my every pore, this is the time of love, fellowship, good will toward man, connecting, loving, hugging, touching, warmth..... yes, warmth, oh how I miss the touch of another human being...just to be touched by their smile is enough to send me into paroxyms of joy. I have actually even stopped dead on the sidewalk because someone in passing smiled at me...and I have to tell them, say thank you, you have NO IDEA what that smile just did for me...... I have done that lately.... just let spill to a total stranger that I was endlessly grateful for that one second connection. I am getting really pathetic huh??

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Sad Sack I wonder if it is just me or is it is just a cold cold cold world where it seems no one, not one living soul is lonely enough to want to connect with me. I swear, I am pretty destitute 'round 'bout now, but I'd go out of my way to just sit down for a cup of coffee with another human being.

I really am seriously thinking of me, NYC, the Port Authority Bus Terminal and a sign: Desperately Lonely person. Unemployed, destitute, but I'll buy you a coffee if you'll stop to talk to me.

Honest. That's what I'm thinking I will do this Xmas

sad sack said:

deirdre said:

I can't stand nor do I even want to face the next seven weeks.... someone pullllllleeeeze just put me in a coma, let me be a vegetable for the next two months, totally unaware of everyone else in their holiday frenzy.

Click to expand...

I feel the exact same way. The holiday season is my least favorite time of year.

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Deidre,
no, not at all, i totally get where you are coming from, i myself have thought the very same thing when a stranger is nice to me. it amazes me also that a stranger is nicer than my own mother who is very critical of me all the time. i know that's just the way she is, and she's doing the best she can, but it hurts all the same. but yes, i have thought the very same thing, like thank you for making my day, when all they have done is shown me simple human kindness and very basic courtesy!

deirdre said:

Woundedbird...i so hear you..... so much of the holidays are disgustingly commercial...so many people seem to be robots, zombies, buying into what the media endlessly streams into our consciousness.... and it's all about keeping up with the trends, the Joneses, our relatives, buying the best present, the biggest present, to prove we love them more, we love them better....jeesh. what a rat race.

My ennui stems from a deeper spot though.... yes, it is disconcerting that the holidays are all show, glitter and fluff....but it is just the endless pounding into my every pore, this is the time of love, fellowship, good will toward man, connecting, loving, hugging, touching, warmth..... yes, warmth, oh how I miss the touch of another human being...just to be touched by their smile is enough to send me into paroxyms of joy. I have actually even stopped dead on the sidewalk because someone in passing smiled at me...and I have to tell them, say thank you, you have NO IDEA what that smile just did for me...... I have done that lately.... just let spill to a total stranger that I was endlessly grateful for that one second connection. I am getting really pathetic huh??

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Sad Sack I wonder if it is just me or is it is just a cold cold cold world where it seems no one, not one living soul is lonely enough to want to connect with me. I swear, I am pretty destitute 'round 'bout now, but I'd go out of my way to just sit down for a cup of coffee with another human being.

I really am seriously thinking of me, NYC, the Port Authority Bus Terminal and a sign: Desperately Lonely person. Unemployed, destitute, but I'll buy you a coffee if you'll stop to talk to me.

Honest. That's what I'm thinking I will do this Xmas

sad sack said:

deirdre said:

I can't stand nor do I even want to face the next seven weeks.... someone pullllllleeeeze just put me in a coma, let me be a vegetable for the next two months, totally unaware of everyone else in their holiday frenzy.

Click to expand...

I feel the exact same way. The holiday season is my least favorite time of year.

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Ok...guess this is now the goodbye part. There really isn't anyone my age around here and no way to really connect with anyone even on a chat or email basis, so I guess I'm just gonna sign off and wish you all well and try to keep on my new regimen of healthy thinking, eating and positivity. I'll still be oh so lonely, but I'm not going to think of myself as a loser anymore. Never again. Good Luck and brightest blessings to one and all.

Sorry to see you go

Minus said:

Sorry to see you go

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Same here You put a lot into each and every one of your posts.

well thank you...but to take my own advice which, by the way, I still am quite astonished I had the nerve to give LOL..... I really need to start living, start getting my life in order.... i'm a mess, you let yourself go and that snowballs to letting just about everything in your life go to seed, it can become a vicious circle. I could probably stay and keep dispensing what small tidbits I have learned from 60 years of loneliness, (yeah, I was an only child..hmmmm, wonder how many of us loners are only children who got too comfortable in our solitary existence? ) anyway.... I need to ACT, not sit here and type. I have so much I have let slide, basic things like keeping the chaos of my life from dominating me...my lord, if you could see the mess my bedroom is in, I think there are corners there I have never seen, I just let crap pile up (and to be honest, it isn't just my bedroom, but that is where I have to start).... I have to push myself to get my life in order, I think cleaning out the mess will help alot. I have to get a regimen, a daily pattern...I can't allow myself these year long wallows, mired in the mud month after month after month. I would have stayed if I could have connected and made a few friends, but that doesn't seem to have happened...so, thanks for the kind words, it was much appreciated. I so hope all the young people here will start being more proactive too. It is so hard, I know, and I wish everyone finds a quiet space of peace within themselves that they are worthwhile and that they can then go on to let the beauty of what they truly love become what they do with their lives.

SophiaGrace said:

Minus said:

Sorry to see you go

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Same here You put a lot into each and every one of your posts.

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