Holiday Cheer? 2007

Original Post: Dec 31, 2007

As I said before, I was looking forward to the holidays. Now that it’s coming to an end I’m not sure if I had a good one. First of all, having my holidays for the first time without my mom was extremely difficult. Now to add to that, my older sister is suing me over my mom’s estate and I got my heart broken for the umpteenth time by the same girl (Note: I’m thinking about writing on this even though I said that I wouldn’t write any more heartbreaks. Maybe I’ll call it Heartbreak 1b. Whatever I call it, it should be interesting. Refer to Heartbreak #1). 

I guess these holidays (2007) haven’t brought a lot of cheer in my life. I even went to go watch the new Alien vs. Predator movie on Christmas night knowing that it was going to be awful. And yes, it was extremely awful! There was nothing else better to do. Now that’s pretty depressing! 

So I’m sitting down getting ready to see how bad this movie is going to be and decided to strike up a conversation with the fat guy to my right. Fat guys are usually talkative and most of the time pretty interesting. I don’t know why that is, maybe it’s just a “fat guy” thing. That’s probably why I have so much fun with my friend Bryan throughout the years because he keeps gaining weight. 

After talking with the fat guy about how much we think this movie is going to stink (never a good sign before watching a movie when you and the people around know that it’s going to suck. I was just hoping that it wouldn’t suck too much – sorry it sucked pretty bad) this couple sits down next to me on my left. The boyfriend looked upset and uncomfortable for some reason. His girl kept saying, “Honey, we don’t have to be here we could leave if you want,” “Would you like me to get you something?” “Do you want to switch seats?” “Honey you just look really uncomfortable is there anything I could do?” This girl was being very accommodating and sweet for her man and I felt like saying to him, “Dude! What the hell is wrong with you! It’s Christmas night and your girlfriend is with you watching ALIEN VS. PREDATOR! What the hell do you have to complain about?” 

I would have said that but the fat guy started up another conversation about a Tiger getting loose from a zoo in San Jose, killing one person and seriously injuring two others. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to impersonate the Tiger and his whole thought process. Tiger: “Man! I could use a midnight snack right now.  Hey, the zookeeper left the gate open. I always wanted to see what the hell this zoo looked like from outside this cage. Oh look my midnight snack walking right to me that’s convenient. That’s just like room service.” Or I could have went with the badass Tiger: “The man can’t keep me down! No steel bars can hold my soul! I’m outta here!” It’s probably a good thing the fat guy distracted me because I would have slapped the other guy for being a punk to his girlfriend. It’s still a wonder to me why the toolbags get the girls. 

To make my holidays even more cheerful, my car needed $732.18 of repairs in order to pass smog. Sweet! Of course I started thinking about all the things I could have done with that money. Here’s a running list of the first few things that popped into my head: 

• A weekend in Las Vegas
• An iphone 
• A flat screen TV for my step-dad
• 24 plates of grilled salmon at Parker’s Lighthouse in Long Beach 
• 40 plates of prime rib at Hungry Bear in Fullerton 
• 12 dinners with someone at Cheesecake Factory 
• 37 new CDs – which comes out to about 450 songs 
• Floor seats to a Lakers game 
• 20 good commentaries 
• 80 bad commentaries 
• 16 gallons of gas 
• About a week in Portland to visit my nieces and nephew Dillon 
• 7 pairs of new Jordan shoes 
• 18 pairs of Jordan shorts 

• 185 grande white mochas (just for kicks I should go into Starbucks and go ahead and say, “I would like 185 grande white mochas please” and just see their reaction) 

• 73 movies that are not Alien vs. Predator (who am I kidding, I’m still going to watch the third one when it comes out, and yes it’s going to be awful) 

• A membership to a good gym and not the run down Bally’s in Montebello that looks like a gym for convicts. 

• A suit that I should probably already have 
• 146 jars of extra crunchy peanut butter 
• 2 speeding tickets 
• Pursuing one girl for about a month 
• Remodel my bathroom (if I do the work myself) 
• Shampoo the carpet of the entire house 7 times 
• Get my teeth cleaned 11 times 
• New headers for my car 
• 24 tickets to The All-American Rejects concert 
• A 732 chance out of 23,000,000 to hit the lotto
• About 5 ipods 
• 2 Disneyland season passes 
• and 2 turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree! 

And those are just the things I thought of from the top of my head. Could you imagine if I sat down and gave this some thought? Anyone of those would have been a sweet Christmas gift, well, maybe not the speeding tickets but everything else on the list. 

After watching my Lakers get destroyed by the Celtics, my pastor calls me to make sure I’m okay because he knows what I’m going through. It’s not healthy to isolate yourself too much. Everyone needs alone time but there’s a difference between alone time and isolation. I think he knew that I was hitting isolation and he wanted to make sure that I go to our church’s New Year’s Eve party. Well, anytime I hear “church” and “party” in the same sentence I always think “awful.” Since when does a church know how to throw a party? 

The word “party” has a negative connotation for me. I always think of raves, drugs, and drinking. So what happens when a church throws a party? I’m not sure but I guess I’ll find out tonight. It starts at 6pm, I said to myself, “Six hours at the church? What in the world are we going to do all that time?” My pastor reminded me that people wait a lot longer in New York in the freezing cold to watch that stupid ball drop in Time Square. I guess I’m in for the “church party.” It can’t be any worst than Alien vs. Predator. We’ll see how it goes. 

In all seriousness, I truly want to pray in the New Year and worship God with my life. Dispute the difficulties I’m going through and how at times I feel inches away from walking away from my faith I know that it is only Jesus who has the words of eternal life. There will be times that we have very little left in our soul to carry any hope. When hope itself has become a burden to carry. I feel hopeless, angry, and bitter with the situation I have found myself in at times. I'm doing all that I can to honor God but it seems that it's not enough. I just want to yell at the top of my lungs, “WHAT THE EFF DO YOU WANT FROM ME, LORD!!” Is it too much to ask for a normal life?? I feel like Maximus (Russell Crowe) in Gladiator after he killed about six or seven dudes on his own in the ring and then started yelling at the crowd, “Are you not entertained!?” “Isn't this why you were here!?” Then throwing one sword in the stands and dropping one on the floor and spiting in complete disgust.

Does God somehow fine what I'm going through entertaining?? My theology says ‘NO!’ And that God is good and that’s the rock I stand on. If my older sister wins the suit I could lose my home. If I told you that wasn’t a terrifying prospect hanging over my head like a dark cloud I’d be lying to you. However, as Walter Wink reminds us, “To worship is to remember Who owns the house.” That’s right, it’s God that owns the house! I want to be at a place where Job said, “Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him” (Job 13:15a). I’m not there yet but worshipping in the New Year with the people of God when I want to isolate myself instead is good start.