Happy New Year?

I hope so.

Christmas & New Year 2006 haven't been very interesting for me to be honest.

I've sat at home watching dvds and tv, with my parents. No parties to go to no friends to see, nothing to attend. This would normally sound like a moan or a whine, but it is just a reporting of the facts.

I've spent so much time on my own that i don't actually think or dwell on lonliness, the feeling of having no-one, because that's not true. I have my family and my parents and various friends, but rather what bugs me is the fact of being alone. Alone-ness is different from being lonely, and I just can't put words to describing it.

Ok, this will sound like self-pity but I swear it isn't. You know you're alone when the clock chimes 12 midnight on New Year's Eve and you know there's nobody thinking about you, or maybe there's no-one that bothered at how utterly miserable you are. That sounds incredibly self-absorbed and selfish I know, but part of being human is the fact of feeling that you're needed, and when you don't feel that, an emptiness starts to grow in your heart.

Before you get the violin music out, I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I've spent that much time on my own that I'm used to my own company now. I know my family loves me, and I love them. It's just that they can't be there all the time, and I can't become dependant on them either. No one wants the lonely brother around on New Year's Eve with their friends.

You know the type. You're on a night out, and the slightly desperate older nerdy brother is there with your mates. Everyone is kind to him cos they feel sorry for him, but in reality, he has nothing in common with any of you, and both you and him know you're being nice to him out of pity. No one needs that. Politeness can be a virtue, but not in this case. It's actually more of a curse.

Technically I could have gone out last night with a member of my family I'm sure of it. But what would have been the point? To go out with people you don't really know or share anything in common with, just because it's the end of the year?

Don't misunderstand. I think my sister and brothers have great friends and i get on with them, but I just don't feel like I fit in. I'm too religious to fit into some of their worlds, and to un-religious to fit into others. I'm kind of a hybrid of sorts, with a foot in both camps.

Now I know what both parties would say: choose one or the other, but my problem is that I can't. I can't stop being a Christian, because it's who I am. At the same time, I can't stop being a human being, because that's who I am too. Earth has as much importance and relevance to me as Heaven does. Now i know that Christians would say I have to focus on Heaven, and Non-Christians would say there is no such thing and I should just live here on earth and enjoy it, but I can't. I hold both of those things in tension, and sometimes one outsways the other admittedly, but I never lose either. I need to find out who I am I suppose, so I can find where I fit.

Please God, can I have some balance and prespective and wisdom this year?

I hope this year I do find some happiness, and I hope i get to pay a big chunk off my debt, and I hope my health improves, or I can at least keep the progression of this disease at bay. That's my wish for this year. I just want to be able to spend next New Year not on my own, and I want my parents to be out somewhere too. Perhaps I am the genetic reflection of my mum and dad. perhaps their isolation and lonliness will be the pattern for me. I hope not. Either way, as long as I'm here I can at least share in that with them, which in itself soothes the pain of being alone a bit.

Ironic huh?

In sharing our lonliness, we keep it at bay for a little while. The cure to your pain is sharing it with others.

Hmm... bit of a deeper post than I wanted to go into.

Ah well, maybe this year is the year of wearing my heart on my sleeve!!

(who am i kidding... every year has been!! lol)

All the best for 2007 for anyone who reads this, and I hope it brings goodness and love for you.

:-)