The Ghost of Christmas Past

I just finished watching “A Christmas Carol” (the version with George C. Scott from 1984), and I’m in tears.  What really affects me is when the Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge his younger self being dumped by his girlfriend because she was upset that Scrooge started to get overly wrapped up in his work and begin to become obsessed with money.

I can identify with Scrooge, but for different reasons.  I had several chances to choose to stay with and marry someone over the course of my life, but I squandered them all… not because of an obsession with money or work like Scrooge was, but just because I was afraid.  I was afraid I’d end up like my parents who were divorced when I was just 3.  I was afraid she was the wrong person (when really she wasn’t).  I was afraid I had more wild oats to sow (shame on me) or that I could do better.  I was gravely mistaken.

All of those “chances” went on to marry and have families of their own, and no doubt their children are experiencing the magic of Christmas… everything from sipping on hot chocolate (don’t forget the marshmallows) to singing Christmas carols at church to the mesmerizing decorative lights & decorations on the neighborhood houses to a much-needed break from homework to (of course) the tingling anticipation of opening gifts and finding out what’s in those colorfully-wrapped boxes.

Thanks to my failing at my Christmas past the way Scrooge did, I don’t have, and am not giving, that magic.  I don’t have a family of my own.

Instead, I’m sitting in my mother’s living room writing a blog entry on a website for depressed people.  No trees or decorations are up, no hot chocolate is sitting in a mug in front of me, and I have no children–no life beyond my own–who are living the magic that children live this time of year.  And I’m absolutely crushed by it.  I’m 49 years old, so it’s probably too late to be given any more… well… “chances”.

I wish I could go back and change things.  I wish I could go back and have the courage to choose one of those few women that God brought into my life and go the distance but I can’t.  It’s my own fault that I’m feeling this way, and that’s what makes this so difficult.  I can’t lash out at God (as much as I would be tempted to), and I can’t piss and moan to any external circumstance or event or person or anything.  I can only look inward.

Curse the day I was born.  God set out multiple paths for me to my dreams, and I was too much of a chicken-shit to follow any of them.  I’ve blown it, there’s no going back, and I’d much rather cease to exist than go on feeling this way, even if it is my own damn fault.  God, I am so sorry.  Please have mercy on me.