I have no recollection of what Christmas was like as a child.

I'm sure it was good. That my siblings and I had a great time. That my parents were loving, that the presents were wonderful, that the food was plentiful and delicious.

I do remember that I didn't like having to choose between divorced parents. Once I was at a celebration, everything was great, but I remember hating the choice of which house to actually be at for Christmas eve.

It was always busy. I remember that we had to rush from home, to church, to my great aunt Carole, to my uncle Bert's, picking up grandma, switching to the other parent. It was never ending, and at the end of it, stuff with food, you'd just drop off exhausted.

We never stopped. Laying on a couch in south Chicago, watching snow fall so heavy that it calling it day was just wrong, it felt like the first time I had ever stopped moving.

This is what people mean when they talk about a white Christmas. It isn't just the snow, that shit we used to struggle through all the time in Forks on Christmas. It was this quiet, this covering of noise and harsh light and the trapping of everyone in whatever place they had felt safe, comfortable sleeping.

Yesterday I went to church. It was nondenominational. I think the pastor and I were both Methodists, but that might have been it. They had a meal before the service, bread and salad and chicken. I was supposed to bring something to contribute to it, but I didn't. No one cared.

I didn't listen to the sermon. Instead I thought about another sermon I had heard before. The part of the bible it dealt with had Jesus tell people that if they were presenting an offering in the temple, and realized that they had a quarrel with their brother, they should leave the offering where it was and immediately go make peace and forgive their brother. If you were feuding, then all of your offerings meant nothing.

My own family was in church then, or would be soon. They'd go into our church, the church my family has gone to for generations. How much were they thinking about me while there? Did they need an extra usher, since the men in my family usually filled out the ranks during crowded services?

The was no point to this. I had lied to my family, and when caught, had decided to take it out on them. Was I five? It had been nearly half a year since I had spoken to anyone in my family. I wasn't accomplishing anything by it. I was hurting my family, and I didn't get anything. There was no ransom, no demands of any kind. I simply wanted them to hurt.

I didn't think that I was making any sacrifice to God, that I needed a clean slate with my family for. That wasn't even the point. The point is that first and foremost, live a good life, and do no wrong. Do not hurt your parents for no reason, not if you have the choice.

But why don't things have purpose? Why call them today, if I wouldn't call them yesterday? Right now, when I was poor and doing shitty in school, when I was nothing? I wouldn't go crawling back to them. Couldn't I hold off until I managed to come back like I always did, a winner?

Pride was no reason to keep hurting anyone but myself.

I wondered if there were presents for me back home. Did my younger siblings still get me things? Did my parents? Would they just keep it all in a box? Or have it out as part of a display? A memorial, to the one with pride and wasted potential.

Today, eating extra was ok. On Christmas day, even someone with no money and no prospects can eat more. Three hot dogs today, and all the ice cream one human can stand.

For one day I will not be hungry.

Christmas day kept me away from everything. My laptop is out of commission, and the computer labs are all closed for the holiday. Even Crerar. Except for the phone I was totally cut off.

That phone had been blissfully silent today. No family had tried to call, like they had on some other holidays. And Tanya had not called either. Of course, in the case of Tanya, that meant that she was worried that I didn't love her anymore, that her calling annoyed me, that I was staying in Chicago because I never wanted to see her again.

I picked up my phone.

Calling it my phone is odd. The phone that does not exist, I had never paid for it. It hadn't been purchased for me. It was a left over, a cast off that was on a large plan. It was paid for by people I loathed, but who were apparently pragmatic enough to want to not have to pay for Tanya calling me if she didn't have unlimited minutes to use.

I honestly never liked the way it folded in half, muffling the speaker so that it had quieter alarms and quieter rings. The joint struck me as structurally weaker than I would want any phone of mine to be.

Really, it was more her phone than mine.

I hit send. The only recent calls had been Tanya, even though I had given the number to Rose. After a few rings, the phone went to Tanya's voicemail, which was perpetually full. Same effect as mine, which was perpetually not set up.

I stuffed the phone into the cushions of the couch I had been sleeping on.

Today, not even the phone would get to me.

Responses from Edward:

CullenLove678: to say that I had a will in this time of my life almost feels inaccurate. I don't know if I tried to do anything.

Lad yDragona: oh, I made it out. I even kept most of the pieces of me.

ConcreteAngel14: I find it somewhat funny that you find this deadly intolerable. Some stuff has been rearranged, but yeah, it's all real. At the end of the day though, there is much worse going on in the world than my lose of self.

What is it that you talked to people online about?

Reading recommendations: reaching back into the old favorites, how about any of the long form stuff by Daddy's Little Cannibal?