Pox Blankets and other Cynical Clichés

I spent the night at my Grandparents' cottage home, overlooking a beautiful lake, surrounded by familiar things I never see anymore, feeling thankful that my friend was able to have Thanksgiving with their family after all. I was thankful that my friend didn't have to take me up on my offer to meal and relax with us. I was thankful that my friend didn't have to deal with the awkwardness I had forgotten and, had I remembered, never would have offered as an alternative to the awkwardness of being alone on a holiday. I was thankful that I got to look and feel like a good friend and be rescued from possibly looking and feeling like a horrible friend all in one week.
My father chose not to come, optioning to make himself a martyr to his feelings of failure and stay home. My grandparents were the usual poor hosts, acting like terrible guests with bad manners, demanding attitudes and abrasive habits that wear on their welcome . . . even in their own home.
I was thankful my friend was able to spend their time among their own family and not mine. I wasn't thankful for the meal, the relaxation, the lake or the cottage . . . which made me feel . . . selfish. Selfish in my own way.
It also made me feel the dull bite of my own cynicism.

I, this past couple of months, have been slowly shedding my cynicism, scale-by-scale. I had even started listening to a Christmas C.D. in my car, a little over a week before Thanksgiving. White after Labor Day, I know.
I've been choosing to accept the apparent foolishness of sentimentality over the brittle carcass I had been slowly putting on thicker and thicker under my own skin. Especially, after coming on quickly to Chanukah. I realized that I hadn't lit my Menorah last year, because I had felt so disheartened about my life at home.
I left home because G_d told me to move to Brooklyn. I moved to Brooklyn, without knowing why G_d told me to go. I moved back home, with my sister, knowing it was to bring my family back together. I did what I had to, but seemingly to no avail. I couldn't hold myself responsible for how they received the idea of my move only being a means to their ends. I couldn't be disheartened by what they chose to do with the fact that all five people were back in the same house for the first time in nearly four years. But I did. Last holiday season, I didn't light my Menorah once. My Shamash passed no flame. I said no blessings.
Late this Summer and early this Autumn, my sisters said they were moving to Chicago and my father said he was most likely moving out. I stopped going to worship, pray and commune on Wednesdays, at the place I had adopted as being my church. Wednesday night was my Sunday morning, until a few months ago . . . until I stopped thinking about attending until it was too late, as I walked my dog past the building.
It wasn't until last weekend that I had realized, in the presence of two friends praying over a meal I had cooked them, that I had even stopped praying before I ate.
I'd grown colder to the traditional holidays, recoiling at the sight and sound of anything remotely yule-oriented. I had stopped even telling people when my birthday was, for fear of having it thrown in my face with a smiling "happy birthday". I had stopped worshiping. I had stopped praying. I had stopped having any form of spiritual communion with anyone other than friends who happened to be believers anyway.

I had even forgotten my dreams.
Every one of them.
While discussing my misanthropic tendencies with my mother, after one of her therapy sessions, she asked me about my dreams. I said I had none. I even used G_d as a cop-out, saying I didn't want to get in G_d's way with my own plans and ambitions. The closest thing I had to a dream was buying an R.V. and spending my days as a vagrant citizen of the western hemisphere, staying anywhere just long enough to remain a ghost. My only dream was anonymity. I realize, now that it wasn't mere anonymity, it was a want to be forgotten. I didn't even want a funeral, should I die.

But I don't want that R.V. anymore. I'm praying, again. I'm planning on celebrating my birthday, in 2009, and throwing the first birthday party I've had in sixteen years. I've been listening to Christmas music and thinking about what to give my family and friends for more reasons than an aversion to the shame and guilt of being the only one to not give a gift. I'm looking forward to lighting my menorah. Maybe even rediscovering what it means to have a dream.
I'm also wondering about how I feel about how I felt today, at my grandparents' cottage.
Is it me, or the ghost of who I've been tainting his old haunts with an ectoplasmic bitterness?
The ghost of the boy who started this blog? A blog that I can only hope might contradict its own name before too long, even if it should retain a certain faithfulness to my lack of ever wanting to fully be a part of this society as a whole. A blog I started only a few weeks after I started spending massive amounts of time and conversation with a new and valuable friend. A friend who I don't know whether or not I should attribute these changes in myself to . . . but I can say that I at least appreciate the parallels. They know who they are and I know they'll be reading this, so they don't need to be cheaply named for just anybody to read . . . but they deserve a post, regardless, because I'm not just thankful that they weren't with me and mine, today. I'm thankful they're with their own, because they deserve more than awkward charity.

It's 8:15, Thanksgiving night, and I might need to be more grateful for what I have, but I'm grateful nonetheless.