My Birthday 2024

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So today is my birthday..

Months have been leading up to this day. But I'm getting ahead of myself …

This year was a year of disappointment. Starting with the fading away of a 2 year relationship. Unlike 2023 where I met a girl, fell in love, went out the country for the first time ever. I even got a layover in London, of where I've been wanting to go to since I was 7 years old. I spent a month in Istanbul Turkey with the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life. Riding the ferry, kissing, shopping at Turkish malls, kissing, nights on the balcony with beers, kissing. Yeah there was lots of kissing!!

When I came home things were good until 2024 when things slowly fizzled between her and I.

The first part of the year was hard because all I was waiting for was April so I could go back to Istanbul. When I went back it was more than obvious that nothing was the same. We were friends that was all. Little, if any kissing occurred. It's taken me 9 months of this year to really start getting over her and I still cry from time to time when I miss her.

Otherwise my writing was flourishing. I found vocal and I feel like I've formed a family here. Everything was getting better. Then I got sick and got the flu really bad.

When you're 62 years old it's a lot harder to shake off the flu, and I was very sick and couldn't do anything for my self hardly and unfortunately during this time when I was sick was when my roommates decided to let me down and not help me at all.

What happened is that it was getting closer to Christmas and I had a lot of packages arriving so I reached out for help carrying them up the stairs and no one would help so I got very angry and I told them all to go to hell. Yep, I actually said the words, Yelled him down the stairwell to be exact. Well, somehow one of my roommates children decided to tell everyone that I said I wished her unborn baby would die or be born with a disease. Well, of course I didn't say that, but after 20 years of friendship none of my roommates would believe me.

So from before Thanksgiving to today my roommates aren't talking to me and of course this means they left me alone for Thanksgiving and Christmas and today on my birthday I won't be hearing from them. This has made my days since November very lonely. Also, one of these roommates was my best friend.

This means I've been like a tennis ball bouncing from depression to great bouts of creativity, and self-pride and back to depression again. Since 2004 I spent every holiday with my roommates especially Thanksgiving and Christmas but this year I was uninvited. All for something that I didn't do, would never do.

What makes it hard is it's not all been bad. Since September won 6 top stories, begun writing more than just poetry, I think successfully, but there's still so much emptiness so much loneliness . At the same time I've made some decisions about my life. I've decided to be my own advocate, To stand up for myself and not beg anyone to love me.

I've had to come to the hard realization that the people I thought were true friends are only “when it's convenient for them friends.” How any one can know me for 20 years and think that I would say such things is beyond me and honestly I'm done trying to convince anyone any more. I have apologized numerous times for saying 'go to hell' and I'm done apologizing. And I'm sure it's going to make for a very lonely existence from now on that I've decided not to be friends with these people, my roommates but what other choice have they left me? I absolutely must stand up for myself because no one else is going to do it.

Today I am going to an old friends house. I had lost touch with her for many years. She got married, I got busy then girls came and went, Puna, Nilufer, time passes. But every Thanksgiving she invites me over and this year I went which rekindled the friendship. So I spent Christmas with her and her hubby and it was a good time. I had been to her sister's log cabin in the woods of Mississippi back in 2003 and then again this year so I felt comfortable there, you know, not as much a stranger as I could have felt. I'd met her family members a few times between the years, at the wedding, etc. And most of all, I felt welcome.

So coming full circle, today I am 63 years old. Being born on December 31st has been interesting. My mother got me in under the wire. Momma's little tax deduction! Born at 10:56PM. Whew! That's cutting it close for 1961! She was at a NYE party when she went into labor. So instead of being born in my hometown of Houston, TX, I was born in a neighboring town.

Life's been very, very tough. I have survived many, many traumas, but the whole point is I did survive! I won't say I am madly successful, I'm not. But I at least continue to thrive and survive. God's been good to me even though I don't understand some of the trails He's had to go through, I accept as best I can without acting like a spoiled child too often.

I've learned the only thing we can really control in this life is what we do, how we respond, what we give back to the world at large. I often fail, but no matter how badly I may want to end it all sometimes, I don't. When I am too overwhelmed I go to sleep for the night or nap and hope to wake up to a better mental state and usually I do wake up with a better perspective. All we really can do is this:

Be Kind, always be this.

Be Good at heart, always trying to do what is right.

Be Giving without allowing ourselves to be used.

Be Hopeful for a better tomorrow.

I wish everyone a nice evening and a good 2025. It might be a tough year with the new regime but we just have to keep representing what is Right and Good and Kind and Be Hopeful and I think we'll make it through.

Welcome 2025! Or as they say in Turkish 'Hos Geldin 2025!'

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Thanks for reading! - Sam