Christmas My Way

I remember how grumpy I was the first time I spent Christmas away from my family. It was the best Christmas I ever had, and the worst one I'd ever known, all at the same time. I felt homeless, like a sinner. I felt like a Rent Boy roaming the streets. I was poor and getting fat. I was in love but unable to see and feel it, numb to the affection waiting for when the hurt would come as it had so many times before. I was being licked and peed on by my new dogs. I tried, really tried to let the Bette Midler Christmas album cheer me up, but nothing did.

What a waste of independence that 2008 Holiday season was. It's one of my deepest regrets, that the fake trees and Chinese food and new family I'd built wasn't enough to make me smile.

I'm not going home this year, and though it's bittersweet, it's not painful. I don't feel deprived of a family--which is funny because I'm single. I feel engulfed in love, like the ocean did in oil a few months ago. I'm going to go back to Palm Springs, my favorite place in the world. I'm bringing my not-so-new dogs with me. I'm going to buy us presents and wrap and then open them. I'm going to read and chill and have Chinese food like I did before. I'll probably lay in the hammock for a few hours and contemplate a bowel movement.

I'm a grown-ass man, and it's time to start defining the holidays for myself--not for the crazy that doesn't have a clue. It's such a sigh of relief. It's such an excitement in my stomach to see what the holidays have in store for me and my doggies. I wonder what the desert air smells like in December? Can you put ornaments on a cactus? Will I finally learn to play Blackjack at Agua Caliente?

For too long all of us have spent 11 months dreading what should be the happiest time of year, because it reminds us of the hardest time of our lives, our childhood. I don't accept that. I like being an adult. I want to be a 32 year old who smells like misteltoe, not fear and hoarding. Why can't we actually be the joy of the season that Macy's tries to manufacture?