Thanksgiving In A Thai Restaurant Alone

It didn't go too badly.  I still feel the depression but I will get through this as usual.  The only thing that makes it easier is having other people around but this year it isn't happening.  My acquaintances, as usual, all have other plans.  I don't have friends.  Friends don't do this to you.  It's even worse during Christmas but at least I can work, get paid for it and dull my own pain a bit by helping my clients.

It isn't all bad.  I was able to budget enough money for a meal in a local Thai restaurant and the food, as usual, was superb.  I also worked on a drawing while eating, and it was quiet as well, with everyone at home eating turkey with their family and friends.  I also had a good six mile hike today in another nice neighbourhood with lots of real estate signs in Chinese.

I'm not going to write off any of my acquaintances.  They sometimes do want to see me.  I am simply no longer calling them friends because this way, I hope, I won't be putting on any of them the expectations of friendship, which inevitably leads to disappointment.

Today I made up a list of the email addresses of all my many acquaintances and supervisors and bosses from work.  I sent them the office number of my apartment managers as emergency contact in case I should die suddenly, which I cc'd to my building managers so they will have an emergency contact list.  Being sixty and having already survived a major health crisis in the last year and a half, I know now more than ever that my time here is temporary.  I could last another fifty years.  I could die tonight.  I don't know.

I've already received word from a few worried folk.  So, I've written them back to say that I'm okay but really I don't want a repeat performance of when my father died and I didn't find out till almost three years later, since whatever remains of my family couldn't care less if I live or die so I have had to stay away from them for my own emotional and mental health.  Not to mention, they never lost my contact info.  They just never bothered to call.  Don't I come from a lovely family, Gentle Reader?

Even though being ignored and neglected on major holidays can be very depressing, on the other hand, I don't have to put up with relatives who don't like me.  It's all about trade-offs, eh?