So The Holidays Are Depressing for Some People? That’s what I hear…and this year I might be joining the ranks of the Scrooges and the lonely who curse the holidays all the way to New Year’s Day. Why? Many reasons, but today I am going to talk about one reason in particular.
A week or so ago when I was tuning my guitar, I broke the E-string (the little one on the end). I have been so busy this past week I did not have time to get a new one until tonight. I finally made the long drive to the music shop, upon pulling into the plaza I was very confused. I looked from one side to the other but did not see the sign for Daddy Junky’s anywhere…Crap…So then I drove to the mall where I was lucky to find a set of generic strings at one of those big box “music stores” where not one of the clerks could help me figure out what strings were best for an acoustic/ electric- in fact, no one on staff knew anything about guitars or instruments at all!
The strings I got ended up working- so I guess that’s good- but I’m still not sure if I got the right ones- the situation was not ideal, but I needed a string and at this point any string would do. I was very stressed all week and I finally figured it out why- I was getting antsy more-so than usual because playing the guitar is a huge time filler that’s been missing from my life for the past week- not to mention that it centers me.
After I got the guitar back in commission, I wanted to learn some new songs- so I did a search online, uncharacteristically of me, I decided to go with Christmas tunes, starting with George Michael’s “Last Christmas.” I started to play it no problem, “Last Christmas I gave you my heart, the very next day you gave it away, this year to save me from tears I’ll give it to someone special.” Ouch. What a sad scenario, poor guy. Reminds me of something vaguely familiar…
So I decided to look up another, the Dan Fogelberg classic, “Same Old Lang Syne.” The song is a narrative about him running into his old lover in a grocery store. She doesn’t recognize him at first, but is happy to see him when it finally sinks in. They decide to have a few beers together in which she tells him that she is not really in love with her husband, though he is a good man, “ We drank a toast to innocence, we drank a toast to now, we tried to reach beyond the emptiness but neither one knew how.” The sad story takes place on Christmas Eve, of all nights!
Next, I went for a few more mainstream classic and conventional Christmas songs, “Elvis’ Blue Christmas” and Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas.” Both songs thematically parallel one another. They are both missing someone special during Christmas time. Mariah repeatedly sings “All I want for Christmas is You,” we get it Mariah, and Elvis croons, “I’ll have a blue Christmas without you.”
The fact that some of the best modern Christmas songs have almost identical themes proves again that fundamentally people want only one thing, the same thing: love. Unfortunately a friend recently reminded me what it felt like to be in love, yes I said unfortunately. His feelings for me put every guy I’ve dated in the past 8 years into perspective as in, they didn’t really like me, love me, or anything, they just wanted to sleep with me. I was reminded again what real love feels like. When you haven’t felt it for so long you tend to forget, like I had. Now that I have been awakened to it again I am miserable. You see, I never thought that the next time I fell in love with someone and it was mutual that it wouldn’t work out. How could it not work out? Doesn’t true love between two people always workout no matter what? Doesn’t it surpass every obstacle and issue simply because it must? Mustn’t it live and breath and fly like a sparrow, a sparrow that has just learned to soar, a sparrow that just left the nest?
After years of disappointment in love I never expected this cruel twist of fate. I didn’t even think such misfortune was possible.
I guess it just goes to show you how juvenile my thinking really was. I guess all those people who told me to be realistic– the ones who took me aside, or even publicly announced to my utter embarrassment, “Hayley, you live in a dream world” were right after all…….
Nah… Now you know I don’t give up that easily! Haha, did I have you for a second? It is not over for me, for us, unless it is truly meant to be that way. I have faith that when two people are meant to be together it will happen. Maybe not this Christmas, maybe not even next Christmas, but I cannot continue to drown my sorrows in eggnog, pop tarts, or even my friend Mia’s fabulous hand rolled cigarettes forever, so let’s hope next that “Maybe next year I’ll give it to that someone special.”
the happiness you seek comes from within you. if you are not happy or content you can never bring happiness or contentment to others. as Obama said;”We are the change we have been waiting for.” if your soulmate doesn’t arrive til the next life you can still have a life full of joy for yourself and others. as for your shopping experience. i went in to Bust(Best?) Buy a few months back to pick up a firewire and usb cable for my Mac and the person working in the computer area of the store had no idea what i was talking about. the selection of stock was also very skimpy. i was surprised at first that the store would have a salesperson who was totally unfamiliar with computer items but since they are only paying the clerk minimum wage why expect anymore than the minimum from them?
I hear ya- I definitely did not fault the hourly employees, it is truly the system that is to blame- a system based on Walmart’s system another store where you are lucky if the clerks have extensive knowledge about the products.
As for happiness, I’m happy I have a new string for my guitar lol, I hope Paul that you are doing fine as well 🙂