I got home from work today and stood in the doorway of my house. It’s Christmas eve today, and my house was empty. There was nobody here to cook dinner, nobody decorating a tree or putting presents under it. I have no stockings hanging from the fireplace. I realized I couldn’t stand to sit here and look at it.
I went for a jog, hoping to clear my head, and get some badly needed exercise… regardless of the fact that there’s still two feet of snow on the ground. For some reason, in the past seven or eight years, jogging has become my way of processing the things in my life that are bothering me.
There was a time when I would push myself through the last couple miles of a jog, even though I knew I shouldn’t. Many occasions resulted in me puking at the side of the road from exhaustion, and instead of stopping like a sane person, I’d continue on. It may sound completely insane, but it really has more to do with being unable to stop something I’ve started. I’ve always been like that.
I’m back home now, obviously, and I’m sitting in my office typing feverishly at the keys, listening to loud music, and drinking. I’m raising my glass in recognition of all those that are gone now; those who will never return. And it doesn’t matter if they’re dead or just out of my life, the end result is the same to me. They’re gone.
In an effort to assuage the melancholy and ache from my soul this evening, I’m putting up pictures of all of those that are gone from my life, or those that rarely make an appearance. I miss them all. And just for good measure, some pictures of me when I was younger have been included.
Enjoy my many ghosts of Christmas’ passed:
