2026/06/01
Christmas was good this year, and it's really important that it was when it had so much stacked against it.
At the start of November, my mom was deadset on skipping Christmas at all this yearly. Not just cause of all the expenses and work needing to be done on the house, but because she was mentally exhausted of having to prepare everything every single year. That and she was probably traumatized from what happened last year with her and B. I don't blame her, really...
Thing is, I would've been totally fine with her skipping Christmas this year and just celebrating it myself, but these last few months have been difficult for R. She has to prepare to move out from her parents' house at the mere age of 18, and her parents having been leaving her alone in the family home for days on end to work on my place. She's been visibly depressed, and I think skipping Christmas this year would've made those feelings so much worse. So, despite it all, we made compromises with mom, and accepted that many of our presents this year would have to be small or cheap this year.
I didn't mind really. Our presents don't have to be especially extravagant in order to be meaningful. I think mom needs to realize that.
And like I said, Christmas was lovely this year anyways. B's been hard quitting on drinking altogether, so there were no fights at all this time. We hung out, watched A Christmas Story for the billionth time, and had a massive breakfast and dinner on Christmas day like we always do. I didn't get much in terms of presents, but R made me a handcrafted book cozy resembling the red room from Twin Peaks and B got me this giant ass plush of Grumpy Bear. Undoubtedly, I think those were my favorites.
Other than that, I'd say the only other massive thing to happen to me this month was my pride friend's birthday party (I'm gonna start referring to him as N). I've been hanging out with N for a while now, which makes so much up for all those months of cancelled plans. We've been trying to go on walks to our local thrift store once a week and so far, it's been a ton of fun. I've even been to his house, where we spent an afternoon watching horror movies. I'm really excited to have someone with a similar film taste as me in my life, as he seems to know about the same weird cult classic shit I do.
But yeah, it was his birthday about a week ago, and he had this gathering involving five other people. I don't think I got to know anybody super well, but I vibed with them a lot, I think. I have no idea if I made enough of an impression, but I really do hope they liked me back. They all seemed pretty left-wing, with one of them being transgender and another being indigenous (and an entire rant from the both of them breaking out about the inevitable fall of the American empire at one point), and I really want to stay close to people representing my politics. Y'know, people I know I can trust. I don't know just how many conservative make up this town, but I really don't want to be stuck in the same position I was left with in high school. I don't ever want to go through that again...
During the party, we watched this crappy horror movie shot in the area we lives (which seemed to have a budget of like......five dollars) and Freddy Got Fingered on his TV with a wide display of drinks. I only got mildly tipsy from drinking a cooler, but the rest of them got pretty wasted from what I can tell. As the night went on, there was a lot of playful yelling, ranting about politics, and a whole lot of back-and-forth talking. The only downside is that I sort of felt left out as everyone got more intense. I kinda just sat back on the couch watching everything unfold, both trying to pay attention to the conversations and what was playing. The thing about me is that when there's multiple sounds going on at once, I tend to struggle to process anything. It's like all I hear is pure noise and by 10 PM, I was feeling incredibly overstimulated. I left earlier than most of the people there, which I feel bad about, but I was starting to get a headache. It was all very fun and I'm glad I went, but I desperately needed at least ten minutes of silence.
Despite that, I hope I can see the people there sometime. My life already feels a bit better now that I've moved, but I still feel that need for a solid friend group. I think that's what I'm looking for more than anything.