The Christmas season is melancholy time for me. It has been ever since my best friend passed away years ago. I guess happiness in general has been an elusive feeling for me since his departure from life. It�s almost like chasing a dream that�s slowly fading from memory. You remember all those feelings because they were as real as any feelings you may have experienced, but you can never quite feel them the same way as they have felt once-upon-a-time because you are recalling a memory of a feeling and not experiencing the actual feeling anymore.

Over time, I�ve been developing the idea, that happiness and the pursuit thereof is grossly overrated. At first the idea was born out of bitterness and the sheer frustration that I can never quite find the happiness that I once had, no matter how much I have tried. That idea has evolved somewhat as I reflected on myself and my situation. In relative terms I am a fortunate individual, I�m not starving, suffering or being oppressed.

I�ve surmised that one of the reasons for my sadness is due to the magnitude of happiness I had once known. Even if the time for my happiness has truly come and gone, I consider myself fortunate for the times that I was happy and in the end I wouldn�t trade those memories for the world. I�ve also figured that by trying to chase this thing called �happiness�, I had a tendency to take other things in life for granted that are equally important.

Although I�ll honestly miss the happiness that was once such a natural part of my life, I have made a resolution not to allow myself to sink into the kind of depression that I�ve come to know the past several years. Life may not be bright and flowery, but it is also not the pit of despair like I�ve allowed myself to believe in the past.

Although somewhat embittering, if anything, the whole experience has made me stronger. I�ve suffered some of the worst things a person can experience emotionally and I have survived. Things other people fear such as solitude, pain, even death are things that no longer rattle my cage by simple virtue that I�ve been lonely for so long, I�ve experienced pain and loss for so long and for a long time I�ve welcomed and wished death upon myself to simply end the whole thing for me. Instead of praying to some vaporous deity to deliver me from my pain, there are times when I feel like tempting the fates by saying �Is that the best you got? If not then bring your worst!�

Perhaps I shouldn�t tempt fate that way as it could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy, but with the way my life has been going, it�s difficult to escape the �Fuck you, fuck this and fuck everything else� attitude that I�ve been developing. I have to admit though it can be liberating to just say �Fuck it, I don�t need or want anything in my life� and to truly mean it.

As for what I want for Christmas, I�m not sure. Materially speaking, the things I really want are things that most people can�t afford even for themselves and even if I do get them for myself or otherwise, I know that the enjoyment derived from them is temporary and fleeting at best. If anything, it would probably be better for me to go around and buy gifts for other people since my Christmas bonus rolled in, I have a bit of disposable income to play with. But then I�d have to contend with the last-minute Christmas shoppers. They are a bunch of assholes, especially when it comes to parking in those fucking malls. Maybe, just maybe, I�ll get myself something AFTER Christmas, perhaps a PS3 and/or a new cellphone (like I need one).

It looks like the New Year is going to usher in some changes for me. Thanks to a CTA renovation project, the train station near my grandfather�s building will be closed for the entire year, until December 2007 at least. For now I get a ride in the morning to the next closest train station and coming home I get off at another stop and take the bus home from there. Prior to the renovations taking place now, that train stop was more or less the same station when it opened almost 100 years ago. The picture below from wikipedia is a pre-renovation shot of the station and the view, interestingly enough is around the area I usually stand on to get to work in the morning.

Once school starts in January however, I�m not sure if the bus home will be running late and if it is, I could be waiting as long as 30 min or more, in the cold of winter, waiting for one to arrive. So I made arrangements to stay in my old bachelor pad downtown to room with my step dad. It�s going to be a little tight, since it�s just a one bedroom apartment and it�s going to be a little weird, since I�ll essentially be couch surfing in my own place, but since it�s right in downtown, it will certainly make my life easier since both work and school are just 5 minutes away by train and a 15-20 min walk if I want to leg it. There�s even a health club in between, so I may even squeeze a workout or two in for myself. I have been craving change in my life and although it isn�t what I have envisioned for myself exactly, it may be a the kind of change I�ve been needing in my life.