Happy Holidays

A time for sharing. A time for dashed hopes.

     As the holidays approached, melancholy was setting in. It has been a while since I had went on a date. I felt the nagging from my mother about not having children. How can I have a family when nobody wants to be with me and me only? 

     Ahmed did not have any family here. I really enjoyed having him in my presence. He warmed my heart. I wanted everyone to meet him and see what a special person he was. I asked him if he wanted to come for Thanksgiving. I asked the folks if he could come and if they were making turkey instead of ham. Everyone said yes and that there will turkey and ham. We cannot have Thanksgiving without a turkey. 

     So, Ahmed and I were off to Garden Valley to dine with the family. On the way there, he told me that we should have gone the other way. I disliked the other way because I was afraid of the snow. 

     We arrived and had a nice dinner. There was something I realized that happens when someone meets someone else from another country. Americans want to talk politics. It happened when Ahmed first met my father. My father had been to Vietnam and tried to talk to him about Americans being in his country. When Ahmed was talking with my grandfather, he tried talking to Ahmed about politics and religious issues. There were only so many people; why do they need all of this land. My rebuttal was, "How many natives were here before we wiped them out?"

     Ahmed had homework to finish, so we headed back home. By mistake, I ended up going the way that Ahmed wanted to go in the first place. I did not realize this until I saw snow on the mountains. This drive took a couple of hours. We stopped to play in the snow and then we finally made it to a town on the other side of where we began. 

     I invited him for Christmas dinner. He came over for spaghetti. We watched movies and went home. My parents thought he was cool. He was the best person that had come into my life...for the time being.

     He continued to remind me to not fall in love with him. It made me so angry whenever he told me this. It was as though I was stupid and could not understand anything. He already got his point across and my point did not matter.

     He asked me what I thought if he got a girlfriend. I was infuriated. Why can't I be the girlfriend? What was I? I hated when he spoke to other girls because he never spoke to me that way. I hated when we went out for a drink.

     The new year was approaching and he wanted me to come with him downtown. I already saw how he was with other girls and I was reluctant to go. He looked sexy when he was flirting. He approached girls differently than me. It made me feel like I was ugly and worthless. Was I not pretty?

     I cannot remember, but I was taking some medication on New Year’s. So, I was not drinking that night. I was not having any fun. To top off the evening, Ahmed wanted to find a girl that would go to bed with us. This really annoyed me.

     We went to the Balcony and he tried picking up girls from there. It made me cranky. He was ignoring me and flirting with all of these girls. It made me incredibly sad.

     By the time we were leaving, we were both cranky. We were cranky about cultural barriers and about boring Idaho. Why were we here in this God forsaken state anyway? What were we doing here? Why was I still out when I had to go to work in a couple of hours?

     I was reminded of how much I hated it here. I felt trapped and helpless. I was stuck in a town that did not have work. I was stuck in a house by myself. Why did I buy a house? What a waste. There was so much that I needed to take care of and nobody was there to help me with it.