It was around December 21st. 4 days before Christmas. I had been practicing my Christmas songs, and was all around in a jolly mood. That is, until I concluded the call that would seal my fate for that year. I was to be lonely throughout the holidays, again. For the nth time in a row. It’s funny, because no one I’m ever involved with ever sticks around past my birthday, which is on the end of summer. In this case, I didn’t even manage to get a month, and it still ended before the holidays were concluded. Oh well.
This time was a particularly brutal one. It already sucks when you spend the holidays alone, but it definitely sucked that I thought I wouldn’t, only for my expectations to be reversed just days before. I spent a good deal of time listening to “Last Christmas” by Wham!, but there were definitely other songs that were stuck in my head around this time. On the day of, I remember hearing “Pink Lemonade” by James Bay on the gym radio. On the walk home, I remember hearing Fall Out Boy’s “Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner” and “Of All the Gin Joints in the Word.” I can characterize this time as “sad boi hours” definitely not the most pleasurable time of my life. Anyway, I remember getting drunk a lot, just being sad, listening to sad music, and all in all having a negative outlook towards love. After all, at some point, I really did think I could have a future with this girl (more on that later). I remember at one point, I was in my room smoking weed, and keeping the windows open even though it was cold. I still had a cot instead of a bed at that time, and I was laying there just listening to music, basically just feeling sad about myself. It was pathetic. Obviously, I still had a life. I still went out, socialized, the usual. No one knew just how sad I was except for my closest friends. My family knew a little bit, but they didn’t know the extent of it at the time. One Wednesday night, my favorite bar hosted their karaoke night. I sang my heart out. I don’t remember when I really started listening to the song “Do I Wanna Know” by the Arctic Monkeys, but I would sing it a lot. I think I ended up listening to the song because I also listened to one of their other songs, “505.” A common theme, it seems. Most songs are about love in some form, after all. Whether that is in the form of a loving relationship, a strictly physical one, or even a toxic, emotional one. “Do I Wanna Know” perfectly encapsulated my feelings toward her. I wanted to know exactly how she felt about me. The chorus hit the hardest, as I was so focused on her, that I didn’t think about anyone else for a while. Obviously, I was heartbroken, but that didn’t change the fact that I was single, and had the chance to go for basically anyone else.
Valentine’s Day was not a fun time for me, obviously. I went hard on cardio, drank, then passed out. At some point during this entire debacle between January and March, I got so drunk, my friend freaked out and had to bring me back home. I was vomiting so badly that I was on the floor of my favorite bar. If anything, my friend was more freaked out than I was. He was not happy about it. I think that really didn’t help my case in asking him not to get mad at her, as to him, this is a direct result of her actions, and not mine. Oh well.
All this to say, this lady had a profound impact on the early part of my year back then. Crazy how things would turn out after that.
~Frank, April 2, 2025
A Person Who Exists 
Leave a comment