the long weekend....

so another long weekend huh? nice one...

what can i say about it?

well a couple of things mainly.

i love april. she is truly one of the bestest friends in my world. i can talk to her about anything and everything. i can be completely open and honest with her from start to finish, and she'll always support me no matter what.

i loved that i was able to confide in her about a couple of big things that have come my way in recent months, and she was very supportive of everything. she voiced her concerns about things for me to be mindful of, but apart from that, she was genuinely happy for me.

i can always rely on her for that - i'm very lucky to be able to call her my friend.

on the other hand, visiting family is still a bit of a sore point for me. nothing against them at all, but even though dad wasn't there, i still came away from it feeling the same sense of sadness and bit of emptiness in my life.

watching my sister with her family interacting with everyone, mum going through old photo albums from her wedding with my cousins - it gave me the usual feeling of "this is all stuff that i can't relate to because my life is different from theirs".

i usually feel that way when it's christmas dinner on xmas eve - everyone with their own lives and me sitting on my own, really wishing i was able to share bits of my life that i am really very proud of, yet unable to say anything in attempts to avoid potential conflicts.

i'm not going to get married, i'm not going to have kids, i don't want to get married and i don't want to have kids. i am essentially a single unit, and probably always going to operate that way, i have a single income household so things do get tough from time to time, i don't have an ambition to climb ranks to earn a gazillion dollars (though the thought is quite nice) and be able to support a whole family.

i'm just me.

i'm gay. i won't be bringing anyone home to meet the family/parentals at any stage, let along christmas. i'm always going to be the one who drives far and wide to do what i think might be best for others first before what i believe i should do for myself.

i understand that part of myself - it's entrenched in me - i take after my mum - always looking after everyone around me first, always serving up plates of dinner to everyone else and make sure they are all eating before i serve myself and hesitate to sit at the table in case there was something else i had to do. i'm not ashamed of it - i'm a servant type - it's just what i do cause it comes naturally to me.

mum and dad are going to portugal at christmas time to minimise how much leave dad has to take off work, so essentially, the family christmas isn't happening this year.

given how it usually makes me feel, i'm pretty ok about that. but at the same time it's a bit sad too cause i know it's the start of things to come as my sister moves to qld next month, and my folks will move to portugal after dad retires.....

my cousin's have offered me to come spend christmas with them, which i might do - haven't spent christmas with their family since before they originally moved back to portugal in 2003...

but who knows what the future brings. i have to construct my family myself for when the time comes that everyone is too far away from each other to maintain regular contact in person...

i do have a few people i count as part of 'my family' so far, so that's a nice start.

but regardless of all that, i really did enjoy my time away - i got to listen to all of 'goodbye gwenovere' (the radio serial), couldn't believe how it finished!

also got to do a bunch of singing, which is always nice....

and got to spend time with my best friend, love her to bits

i really love and appreciate my life.