Christmas Eve is always profoundly silent — people have done their shopping, they are heading home or are already at home with family and friends.

This silence pierces your heart when you’re alone on Christmas Eve. I know this from harsh experience.

The relationship with my girlfriend had all but ended, my aunt and uncle had gone to Vegas and on Christmas Eve in California I was as alone as I had ever been.

It is an eerie feeling to be alone on Christmas Eve. You think about the times you spent between fighting sleep so you could catch a glimpse of Santa leaving presents or giving into sleep to wake up and find he arrived the next morning.

You were comfortable then, nestled in the safety of home, your parents, your loved ones, your friends. You didn’t care about relationships, trying to find a job, paying bills or worrying about any of the other responsibilities that come with adulthood.

On that night, the Christmas Eve I knew was 2,000 miles away and I was 2,000 miles away from anyone who remotely cared about me, the December 24 silence was like a dagger in my heart.

That evening only punctuated everything else that happened, losing my internship at a trucking magazine, losing a temporary job loading trucks during a Lucky grocery store chain strike and on the verge of losing the girl I had followed out there.

Most of that Christmas Eve remains a blur as I continue to try to block it from my mind. I remember the silent darkness, the loneliness even in a suburban apartment complex surrounded by complete strangers.

I remember the bottle of Crown Royal I was going to give to my vacant uncle and the poinsettia I was going to give to his wife. I drank a good portion of the Crown and ended up giving the plant to a neighbor I barely knew.

All I wanted was to be home in North Carolina. I could care less about fighting for the girl I loved because after the way she treated me there was no love there.

Christmas Day and New Year’s were just a blur in my mind.

All I could think about was home and sometime later I made the decision to leave. Declaring I was leaving California to the girl who broke my heart felt good and it was about the only time she showed concern and protested this decision. My mind was made up. I’d like to say there was some Christmas Eve alone revelation but I wouldn’t be exactly honest if I said there was a Zen moment right then and there.

My Zen moment came and I finally began the long trip back to North Carolina, no radio in the car because it had been stolen from the garage where I had repairs done. It was just my thoughts and I.

I write this only to say I know what it’s like to be alone on Christmas, especially Christmas Eve when the dead silence breaks your heart and you’re left with only your thoughts.

That’s why home is always the best place to be. Home is Christmas, home is safe, even when you’re an adult home is safe and you should embrace those opportunities more than you should embrace some gift that will soon wear out its usefulness. Being home makes that Christmas Eve silence a peaceful thing rather than something that pierces your heart like a dagger — Lance Martin