It was an uneasy day for me, Thanksgiving. I've still got mixed feelings about it as I type this. The main event that impacted my day was going to Thanksgiving mass in the morning. I was semi-forced to go. I mean, technically, I volunteered to go with my family, but I only did so because I knew that if I didn't go, things that have already started to go bad with my folks would only get worse. My relationship with my sister is still on shaky grounds as it is, and I didn't want to exacerbate the situation. Already, this is all affecting 'Ama and the kids. So I sucked it up and went. And of all the Catholic churches in the city, the Dud chose Saint Joseph, the place where I fell from grace. I used to be a catechist there. Taught Pre-K and Kindergarteners all about Jesus and how to pray. This is also the place where I made my Confirmation back in high school, and where I was a member of a youth group. We did church retreats for drug addicts and gang members, food drives, that kind of stuff.

This is also the place where I learned that a church, just like every other institution, is really another form of business. Suffice it to say that my parting with this place was not easy for me, but it was necessary. I was blinded, dazzled by the Word. And seeing what goes on behind the veil hurt me deeply, especially when there were so many people involved that I loved and looked up to. Having reached a certain point within the congregation, I felt rejected towards the end, lacking in the promise of faith. Case made, I left, okay? I tried to go back later, when 'Apa was sick, and mostly for his sake, but it was never the same. Not with this church, not with any other. I can honestly say I lost my faith. To the day, I've yet to find it. Perhaps I've become too cynical with age. ('Ama and the Dud both hold the hope that one day I will regain my belief in God the Father and return to the Flock. Fuck that. I pity them.)

I don't know what the sermon was about. I wasn't paying attention. I was too interested in absorbing my surroundings, examining the building I used to know like the back of my hand, noticing all the changes, what stayed the same. Seeing old familiar faces, older now with age. I realized sometime during the mass (or maybe afterward, during the day) that most of these people I used to know also knew my father. And that they must be aware by now that he was dead. It was in the paper, after all. They didn't show up to his funeral, but I understand they had no obligation to, and my family had already had our falling-out with the congregation by then. Shit, I don't even think I was working at UPS yet, when I stopped going to church. In fact, I'm sure I wasn't.

I saw my godparents. My godfamily, from my confirmation. They've grown in number. Rudy and Mari adopted a son, Michael Joseph. Mara married Duque, and they have two daughters. For many years now, I've wished them joy, and to never see them again. I got neither. I think it's the first that really bothered me. Rudy looked... the same. Dud was right (she'd told me she'd seen him at mass before; he's a lecturer). He was all preened up, in a gray suit and neatly combed peppered hair. But my madrina... Mari was not her usual self. She looks... older, more bitter (if that's humanly possible). She wore a really old, faded blue t-shirt, and her hair was nappy. Their new son looks anywhere between 10 and 12 years old, and I swear his name rings a bell. I wonder if he's related to them somehow. The boy looked surly in a black t-shirt. Mara looked the same as well, quaint, and it looked as though she was balding, though that can't be right. Duque's put on weight, tall still, but not so lanky. He looks better now. Makes me wonder if he's still got that uncontrollable raging teenager beneath the surface that doesn't hesitate to move to strike a woman or shove her out of a moving vehicle. I hope that boy's gone, or at least well-contained. His and Mara's daughters are tiny and sickly looking, I hate to say. And all that kept going through my head was, "You reap what you sow," but that's a horrible thing of me.

We got home and started working on dinner (Mom was in charge of stuffing, Dud mashed some potatoes, and I handled the Big Guy - turkey-a-la-butter-con-garlic-y-chingos-de vino-rojo). And the entire time, I knew we were gonna approach the part of the day where we sit around the table and give thanks for all we have, and I couldn't stop thinking about my padrinos. I wondered what they were thankful for, and if they were really thankful, and not just forcing themselves along, like I did by going to mass.

I wish them well.

And to never see them again.

I do wonder where my faith went. I used to be really devoted. I've actually read through the entire Catholic Bible (even if the Dud won't believe me when I told her). When I was a kid, and I'd get a stomach ache for whatever reason, or just plain sick, fever or whatever, I used to just sip holy water and it'd go away. That's how strong my faith was. It was my placebo. I knew the names and stories of all the major saints, could pray the rosary in my sleep... all by age four. I was in the church choir with my viola one year too, I remember. No one thought I was gonna become great in whatever church-related field I decided to go into, whether lecturer or choir member or church group leader or otherwise - they knew.

So how did I fall so far? Why can't I believe anymore, the way I used to? Really, there's no one out there who wants to know more than me, dammit! I couldn't even sit through the damn mass and keep my damn left eyebrow down. I just kept smirking and cocking that bastard up, and I couldn't stop myself! I wasn't trying to be rude. I just was. And I was actually fuckin' trying. I was trying, for the sake of my niece and nephew sitting on the pew at my side. I wanted to be good example, but I couldn't even bring myself to utter the psalm responses, or sing a single damn song. And I've known all those songs backwards and forwards for years. My voice sticks in my throat.

Why? What the fuck is wrong with me?!

And I know the only reason I'm trying to fix my faith is because it'll help me feel a little less rejected. That, that right there, that sickens me. I feel the ick in the back of my throat, like I wanna hurl something up.

All my relationships are broken. No exceptions. Perhaps that's the reason why I bury myself in this online virtual vent-hole. So I can fill the silence with the sound of my own typing, so I can fake it that I'm not alone, that I'm alone and don't care that I'm alone, that I'm not such a sorry sack of shit. I'm so pissed off at myself right now. I'm not fishing for attention, believe me. From who? Or what, anyway? Myself?

I've kept this site for years because I need someplace to talk to myself. I type these things out, and then I read them over. I try to digest things, find something that I missed. I've gotten the great idea (note the sarcasm) in my head that maybe in order to find the person I used to be I need to go back to the beginning of this shit and read it all over again. I tried... just once. I found my younger teenage self to be very annoying and whiny and filled with teenage angst. Five years from now, or maybe five minutes from now, I'm gonna go back and read this and find myself to be really annoying and whiny and filled with adult angst.

Okay, I just made myself laugh a little. That's a good sign; I'll be alright. Because I'm still an idiot at heart, and that's my main purpose here, I think. The best way to live out one's life is to do it laughing, and I never fail to amuse myself.

For a list of things I'm thankful for, do me a favor, and go look in the mirror. You do mean the world to me, you know. Even if you are all the way on the other side of the monitor.

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