Dear Santa,
It's been 30 years since I last wrote you a letter. Back then I asked for stuff for Christmas that pertained to a 5 year old. At the time Atari was the game system to have, small color televisions were popular and Tonka trucks were still made of metal instead of the plastic they are now. I wrote you then because I believed in you as most that age would. I grew up and realized the truth: There is no Santa Clause. It was only my parents and family keeping the spirit of the holiday alive and to give me something to look forward to and create excitement. For them, I think, that was half the fun. They enjoyed the gratification of making me behave by instilling the fear in me that you wouldn't visit. I was obedient, did what I was supposed to because i was deathly afraid of not getting the things I wanted. It worked and I got everything I wanted. When I got older and realized what the truth was I can't say I didn't know already when I was told you didn't exist. Part of me wanted to still believe. Part of me wanted to still have that excitement for Christmas other than eating and gift exchange.
Well, Santa, 30 years has passed since then and I'm approaching my 36th birthday. The reason for my letter after such a long delay is simple. I'm not asking for gifts, not asking for the latest gadget or electronic nerd thing. In fact I'm not asking for me at all. I have everything I need and then some. What I'm asking for would probably be better taken care of after you've finished delivering presents because it can't be put in your bottomless red bag. There are a few people in my life right now that need a little slice of the good cheer you tend to hand out along with the gifts. They could also use a box full of reassurance that everything will be better in the future. Most importantly they need some inner peace and comfort. These are gifts I can't give them no matter how hard I try. For these special and infinitely important people in my life this time of year has always held a special place for them. It was a time for them that had its rituals and created indelible memories of happy times. This year is different than any previous year. There is an empty seat at the dinner table this year. This empty seat has caused a lot of stress, frustration, heartache, anger, resentment and all the emotions that no one wants to feel this time of year. For me Christmas stopped being incredibly important a long time ago but for these irreplaceable people it has always meant so much more. So, Santa, I'm asking for you to help me try and make this Christmas sneak by without a lot of fanfare and slide 2012 gently under the door. Help me give these people I love these small gifts so we can wake up January 1, 2012 with a renewed outlook and a t least a small sense of comfort that the new year will be better than this one.
I've always been able to keep things light-hearted and fun and kept everyone smiling. This year I'm having a hard time doing this and frankly I'm burnt at both ends so I'm reaching out to you in my adulthood with the hope that this letter makes it to the North Pole and one of your Elves reads it and points it out to you personally. I know this is one of hundreds of millions you will get but I still have hope you will see it and be able to fulfill my gift request. I'm not exactly sure where I will be this year when December 24th rolls around so I hope you can find me. I'm sure you will, you always did before.
Oh yea, by the way, I don't use the same name I did back then cause I'm all grown up now so I'll help you remember me. I hope you and the Missus are doing well. Don't work too hard and try and eat some veggies now and then. We have an obesity epidemic right now.
Take care, Santa. See you soon.
-Tommy
Friday, December 2, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
My Best Friend
Yea, yea I know it’s been a while since I put anything worthwhile down on “paper” but I’ve started to have the mindset that when I say something in this blog or on Facebook I wanted to be pee-your-pants funny or I want it to be insightful or just be my own little “FTW’ moments. I guess this entry we can file under insightful.
It has been almost 3 years since Melissa and I met and every day has been a blessing for me. Those of you who know me know damn well I don’t use the word “blessing” very often, if at all, due to my controversial views on religion…..but that’s another blog entry that will probably never see the light. Anywho…after all this time together and us being husband and wife I have grown a new appreciation for the term “Best Friend”. Typically when one says this they are referring to someone of the same gender. “My Bro”, “My Homie”, “Muh Dawg” but I can’t use these terms to accurately describe what she is to me, beyond wife and soul mate, than “Best Friend”. I know it’s a term used often and with little regard to its meaning and tossed around to whoever is most convenient and visits often. I happen to be lucky enough to have a live-in best friend and it’s wonderful. The best part…..she’s female and we are married. BROWN CHICKEN BROWN COW YA’LL!!!
I will attest to the fact right here and now that I have not had ANYONE, and I mean A..NY…ONE, whom I could call “Best Friend” in my entire life save one person I grew up with . He’s in the Military and I have no idea where he is. We haven’t seen each other in well over 10 years. I have had other guy friends who have filled the temporary position of “Best Friend” but again it was never the bond that I feel with Melissa and this bond that goes beyond the vows of our marriage.
Dictionary.com has an interesting definition for the term:
Main Entry: best friend
Part of Speech: n
Ok…what the hell is boon companion???
| Main Entry: | boon companion |
| Part of Speech: | n |
| Definition: | a very close friend |
| Example: | She is inseparable from her boon companion of 20years. |
| Etymology: | 1566; literally, 'good fellow' |
Well I’ll be damned. The term for “Best Friend” goes back 210 years before the birth of our country and what’s more, the Italians had it right the whole time with the term “Good Fellow”. It was someone they trusted with their life. Someone they knew would have their back no matter what happened or what was said, someone who would walk through the fire shoulder to shoulder with them. They also knew the dirtiest of secrets. I know Melissa’s and she knows mine. We have weird quirks we don’t tell anyone about but if asked we have nothing to hide. We also don’t hide anything from each other and, God forbid something happen and we are no longer together, you will NEVER hear me utter one single solitary bad thing about her as a person or what she was as a wife. See how this works? She’s my best friend, my Queen and the center of my universe. She has earned this illustrious title NOT through attrition as my wife but because she exudes all the attributes of wearing the badge of my “BFF”.
Everyone should have a best friend, BFF, “bestie” or something similar. Do you? Look around at your circle of friends. Go ahead I’ll give you a few minutes to flip through your Facebook list. Do you have someone in that list that you can say you are best friends with? Maybe you do…maybe you think you do? It’s something in life we should constantly evaluate. Family is one thing. They will always be there no matter what, but friendship is different. It is an unmistakable and undeniable bond that forms between two people who come from different cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities and belief systems. Is that not an absolutely incredible thing to have happen? It’s like fucking magic. Sociologists say that really close friends, whether they be same sex or opposite sex, will be as close as two people can be without becoming intimate with each other. THAT is how close good friends are. THAT is what the term “best friends” really means.
“Bro, you know all my bullshit secrets and you pulled me off that Tijuana whore before I got married…then we found out she had 2 vaginas and we kicked ourselves….but anyway…. I love you, man. I’ll never fuck you in the ass or open mouth kiss you but I love you, dude.”
NO HOMO
I wrote this not because I was bored or hadn’t said anything in a long time, but because as I have grown as a person over these last few years I have come to appreciate what it is to truly have a best friend. Do you have one? Are you one? If you aren’t or don’t then why not? It never hurts to take a look at YOU and see what qualities you bring to the proverbial bargaining table to be someone’s best friend. I have a best friend….her name is Melissa Simmons. I couldn’t be more proud.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
I wish I could tell you...
I wish I could tell you exactly what kind of birthday weekend my wife just had.
She turned 30 this year and has been sort of dreading it. I guess because hitting 3 decades of existence it makes us all realize we aren't kids anymore. We have left behind our 20's in a blaze of glory and never to be spoken about again. There are exceptions of course. We all recount our first legally drunken night, being excited about an insurance drop when hitting 25-ish and then the dreaded walk to 30's front door. I wish I could tell you I enjoyed my 20's. I guess in some ways I did but I don't remember many. Regardless, this past weekend was about closing the door on Melissa's 20's and opening the door to her 30's. Me being the person I am wanted to do something different and special and make the weekend enjoyable.
It all started about 3 months ago or so when I got a Facebook message from her 2 best friends Laurie and Liise. Both live in Arizona and both are two of the most incredible people I have ever met. More on that later. They had a drunken night idea to jump on a plane and surprise Melissa for the weekend. I agreed, without hesitation, to orchestrate a 3 month trek to make this happen on my end. It would involve scheming and being treacherous and deviant and sneaky all for a good cause...........FUN!!!!
I wish I could tell you the plan was executed with "Mission Impossible" precision. I wish I could tell you that my original plan to have them waiting when Melissa got home went down without fail.
My beautiful wife who is as innocent as she is sexy found out that they were coming. She kept her silence until the night before and then sprung it on me. So the tables were now going to be turned on her dear unsuspecting friends. But beyond that it was my job to keep up the bed of lies I had been sleeping in for so long. I had to continue to convince Laverne and Shirley that Squiggy had no idea they were coming. The drive home from the airport from picking them up was pure torture. I wish I could tell you it was easy lying to 2 people I have only met once.
So now the plan was laid, destroyed, rebuilt and sprung. Laurie and Liise walked in to Melissa hiding in the dark kitchen and she jumped out like a stripper from a cake. Laure wet herself. The rest of the weekend was a blur of sorts. I cooked, we drank, we laughed, we played guitar hero and we all cried a little.
I wish I could tell you what kind of friendship I witnessed, but I can't. It's beyond words. I sat back and watched 3 friends who initially came together due to life changing circumstances and bonded like hydrogen and oxygen. Planetary alignment couldn't be a more perfect analogy. The come from different backgrounds, have different life goals, act completely different from each other but they all share a common bond that must be witnessed to be explained and even then words would escape the most linguistically talented. It's so hard to describe that it's making this part of the blog difficult to write. All I can tell you is that they love each other like sisters. Sisters who don't have to be in constant contact with each other or even talk every month and then when they get together it's like they were never more than a day apart. Simply amazing and, in my opinion, a rare thing.
I could not have been more pleased to have them in our house and I have never taken more pleasure in cooking for someone as I did over this weekend. I was a cooking machine and my only goal was to make sure that these 3 ladies wanted for nothing and did not have to lift a finger for anything. I was happy to lay down as their servant and make sure their every whim was taken care of with pride. My pleasure was from them being pleased and having a good time. I wanted Melissa to have a 30th birthday she wouldn't forget and I'm pretty sure it was mission accomplished.
There was so much more that happened and I wish I could tell you.....
She turned 30 this year and has been sort of dreading it. I guess because hitting 3 decades of existence it makes us all realize we aren't kids anymore. We have left behind our 20's in a blaze of glory and never to be spoken about again. There are exceptions of course. We all recount our first legally drunken night, being excited about an insurance drop when hitting 25-ish and then the dreaded walk to 30's front door. I wish I could tell you I enjoyed my 20's. I guess in some ways I did but I don't remember many. Regardless, this past weekend was about closing the door on Melissa's 20's and opening the door to her 30's. Me being the person I am wanted to do something different and special and make the weekend enjoyable.
It all started about 3 months ago or so when I got a Facebook message from her 2 best friends Laurie and Liise. Both live in Arizona and both are two of the most incredible people I have ever met. More on that later. They had a drunken night idea to jump on a plane and surprise Melissa for the weekend. I agreed, without hesitation, to orchestrate a 3 month trek to make this happen on my end. It would involve scheming and being treacherous and deviant and sneaky all for a good cause...........FUN!!!!
I wish I could tell you the plan was executed with "Mission Impossible" precision. I wish I could tell you that my original plan to have them waiting when Melissa got home went down without fail.
My beautiful wife who is as innocent as she is sexy found out that they were coming. She kept her silence until the night before and then sprung it on me. So the tables were now going to be turned on her dear unsuspecting friends. But beyond that it was my job to keep up the bed of lies I had been sleeping in for so long. I had to continue to convince Laverne and Shirley that Squiggy had no idea they were coming. The drive home from the airport from picking them up was pure torture. I wish I could tell you it was easy lying to 2 people I have only met once.
So now the plan was laid, destroyed, rebuilt and sprung. Laurie and Liise walked in to Melissa hiding in the dark kitchen and she jumped out like a stripper from a cake. Laure wet herself. The rest of the weekend was a blur of sorts. I cooked, we drank, we laughed, we played guitar hero and we all cried a little.
I wish I could tell you what kind of friendship I witnessed, but I can't. It's beyond words. I sat back and watched 3 friends who initially came together due to life changing circumstances and bonded like hydrogen and oxygen. Planetary alignment couldn't be a more perfect analogy. The come from different backgrounds, have different life goals, act completely different from each other but they all share a common bond that must be witnessed to be explained and even then words would escape the most linguistically talented. It's so hard to describe that it's making this part of the blog difficult to write. All I can tell you is that they love each other like sisters. Sisters who don't have to be in constant contact with each other or even talk every month and then when they get together it's like they were never more than a day apart. Simply amazing and, in my opinion, a rare thing.
I could not have been more pleased to have them in our house and I have never taken more pleasure in cooking for someone as I did over this weekend. I was a cooking machine and my only goal was to make sure that these 3 ladies wanted for nothing and did not have to lift a finger for anything. I was happy to lay down as their servant and make sure their every whim was taken care of with pride. My pleasure was from them being pleased and having a good time. I wanted Melissa to have a 30th birthday she wouldn't forget and I'm pretty sure it was mission accomplished.
There was so much more that happened and I wish I could tell you.....
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