A Christmas Memory: If Only in My Dreams

After a decade of institutionalized Christmases in recovery homes and homeless shelters I find myself in a beautiful home, pictures on the walls, warm inviting rooms, and views from every window of the majestic mountains and vast golden fields and canals that separate us from them. Sunsets that evoke a Spiritual peace of mind, some promise that no matter how bad things might get the sheer splendor of every moment is reflected in the sky. 

As a happy child of the Post-War years I fantasized of living in Arabia where common people become princes and carpets fly, I still have flying dreams and I was for a time royal but I have never been to Arabia. The childhood dreams that dominated every holiday made the season all the more magical looking forward to the coming-true years. They came so fast and were so quickly gone and what came of that for me was after-life despair.

Years of wondering what possible lessons there could be in obsolesce and deciding drugs and cheap thrills were the best way to waste the time once I gave up on earning forgiveness or reparations to the many I hurt so badly. Better to forget such enormous mistakes, impossible to face them … like looking at death itself …  easier to die alone without memories.