Goodbye 2022

  Nearly one year ago, I deleted my old journal. It had been roughly a six month manifesto where I had tried to basically express my thoughts, feelings, and opinions on just about everything in my life. I deleted it because I had assumed too much about my future. I deleted it because the self who wrote it was gone forever. I deleted it that day because it was the day when I learned that losing a loved one is losing yourself, too. I decided to start completely over. I began with letters to my sister, and I continue with these letters to the universe to this very day. Marsha, the universe, all the same? I at least have this wish that she is out there somewhere, happy, loved, at peace. The stars still shine in her name. Their light shines from before I lost her. This will be true for a long time. I nuked my old journal just as events nuked the old me. I had no choice but to start over. Since then, I have been chronicling events in my life and events in my head. There are things about me that I have never told anyone. This has been the way I have kept grounded and mostly centered. By allowing the chaos to exist at least somewhere, I have been able to navigate one of the most difficult years of my life. Cheap therapy. Doctor Blog-ieo. That was and still is the purpose of these ramblings. If I seem to get a bit too negative here, just remember: Out of my head and onto the page. Everybody has their own demons to fight. Sometimes, the only way to exorcise them is to summon them for an ass kicking. This is the place I go when I need to. This is where I write about most of the many things I can't exactly talk about. These are my letters to the universe and to my sister.

I miss you so much.

Socrates once said that the only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing. And so concludes another year of proving I knew exactly nothing. Things happened, bad things, terrible things. The worst? Losing someone close to me, someone who I always assumed would outlive me. Yet, I'm still here, and she's been gone for almost a year. 2022 has been a year of hell. I hope for so much better in 2023. It may be man's calendar, but it's this human's life. Sadly, it's just not my universe. Not without my true self, not without her. It's no fun being the leftover puzzle piece. It's not about fitting in. It's about never being able to come home again. When distance is measured in years instead of miles, you can never go back home. This is a truth that punches like Tyson. It hits hard. It hands me my own heart every time I think about it. There comes a point when you can never go home. Death is finality. There is nothing in this world more final. It is the end of so much more than the one you lost. There is this part of you that lived in them. There are the plans you made with them. There is the future. All of the above is lost in finality, gone forever. It is the end. Hopefully, we will find ways to move past it. But it will never be the same. The future you build, the person you will become, never the same.  Accepting this truth has been very difficult for me. I can't honestly say I have completely accepted. It feels so much like betrayal. She deserved so much better. I don't want to leave her in this terrible year. And it doesn't matter she's no longer here. I still don't want to leave her. I doubt this makes sense. Feelings and logic are not the same. I can't just leave her here. I can't explain this to myself, much less anyone else. It is simply the way I feel. I find myself back in time, January 23rd, 2022, in a room that gets smaller and smaller. I see my sister's face, I feel her hand in mine, I hear the heart monitor and the breathing machine. Part of me never left that room. It's like the room continued to get smaller and smaller until it became a singularity, frozen in time, Her hospital room, my prison cell. The guard stares grimly through the glass window. His contemptuous glare through my own eyes, my own face. It was the same face as the prosecutor and the judge wore in that mental courtroom where I have grilled myself again and again and again for not being able to save her. That is one hell to live with. If it turns out I was wrong and religion is somehow actually real, there's no need to send me to hell for being a non-believer. In so many ways, I am already here. I am without my sister without my mother, without a friend, and watching so many things fall apart both figuratively and literally. The few things I actually want for the remainder of my life are about as impossible as owning the Moon and stars, seemingly just as unreachable. Hell sure looks a lot like planet Earth these days.

It would be so nice if Wonderland were a real place. Well, maybe the Red Queen could be a bit nicer. Maybe the flowers could be a bit less snooty. However, I am sure that whatever the Mad Hatter and The March Hare are putting in their tea would make you not mind so much. Clean Cup, move down! Look out for the mad watch! Watch out for the mad look! Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were gateways to realms of wonder, worlds of fantasy. Wouldn't it be nice to escape, at least temporarily, this drab, disparaging world? A good book, a visual novel, a song, or a game will help you do so in your head, at least. Sadly, rabbit holes lead nowhere. The only holes in the ground that lead us out of here happen to be rectangular and six feet deep. Some less healthy gateways people choose actually do lead somewhere, just not the pleasant world they thought. What looks like heaven from without can actually be hell within. Stick to books. Stay with visual novels. Let a song take you away. This is as real as it will ever get, my friend. A mental realm is the only waking escape there is. Sleep happens to be the other.

Last Tuesday was the first workday after 4 solid days off. Since the weather had been dreadfully cold, I spent most of that time nice and snug under my covers. I only left the house on Christmas day, and mainly because I was expected to. I then found myself back to the usual stuff. It was still dreadfully cold, but I had to force myself to go out in it. That was the difference. There are so many times I still wonder why. There seems to be only one incentive: survival. Is there any other reason left to wake up? Is there any reason to come home besides the prospect of sleep? I ask myself all the time. I question everything. Yet, I still go through the motions. Autopilot is a hell of a thing. It seems I spend much of my life in this mode. Abandoning ship with a remote control on the wheel. It's like the real world is just not worthy of my undivided attention anymore. Autopilot me can deal with most of it. And, anything that actually requires my attention is not likely to be pleasant. Work, sleep, bills, and dealing with people, some of them under the false impression that I'm rich or something, either in money or in nerves. And I am barely hanging on with both. Believe me, it is one tricky balancing act. It's a wonder I haven't wiped out on either wave. The day is probably coming, but I'll try to keep it pushed back and postponed for as long as I can. That's me, holding up the pillars in the great temple. Gather in the courtyard with your popcorn and soda. It's gonna be one hell of a show when things come crashing down. Hopefully, that show won't happen for a long time, but know you read it here first. Getting old sucks. Losing beloved friends, beloved family, sucks even worse. And I am so damned tired of losing. It's almost as bad running out of words to say. It lacks less than a month, having been a year. My dear sister. My dearest sister. Just because it's been said so many times before does not mean it ever went away. I am this broken record. This void remains. I am without you, Sis. There is no way this can ever be right or proper. I am eight years older, firstborn. So why the hell am I still here, when you're not? You of Reagan, I of Nixon. You of Rather, I of Cronkite. You of MTV, I of AM rock radio. It's just wrong. How is it I am here last when I was here first? Does that make any damn sense? It seems I have lapsed into the same words again and again and again. Not all prisons are physical. Instead of concrete and steel, we have heavy thoughts. We have walls and walls and walls. We have a grim, dire warden who wears our face like a mask. The prisoner dwells in darkness, lives in bleakness, in a cell of gloom. It is a cell that looks like a hospital room in Tallahassee. In this gloom, you can just make out the number 2022. I hate this year. I hate it with a passion beyond words. It is a thief and a devil. Look at what you stole from me! May these last few hours of this dreaded year pass quickly. 2022 can return to Hell, where it belongs. Burn, Baby, Burn, Disco Inferno. I am waving goodbye. Notice I have only one finger up. If this post were an Van Halen album, It would be FU2022!
 

 So... Moving forward, I'm wondering exactly how and even if I should. You can see the focus of this, anchored so deeply within my heart. Sometimes, I fear covering the same ground again and again. Each day can seem like that. You can speak your heart over and over, and the feeling remains. Maybe onto the page is not exactly out of my head or out of my heart. She's not coming back. She can't. It wasn't her choice to leave me in the first place. It is beyond her control and mine. I have poured out my heart for almost a year now. It often feels like it happened yesterday. Grief has a way of kicking my ass and stomping on my heart, too, for good measure. I miss my sister. I say it again and again. Saying it does not fill the void. There are more than 400 kilobytes of ascii text of me trying to explain the magnitude of it all. It does not fill the void either. I don't know what to do. I am just as lost now as I was then. Maybe I should take a break or find some other way to write, maybe a new way of expression. There has to be a better way. Grief is love without a return address. It is an undelivered hug, an unfulfilled need to hold and be held. It is words that can be spoken but never heard. It is a vacant lot where a house once stood. It is a void where a human being once lived. It is a part of my heart so suddenly, almost violently, separated from me. And this is the cheap bandaid I have been trying to patch it with. It just falls so short. I wish I had the power to heal, not only myself but others too. Can I ever be whole again? Could I ever be me again? What good is a single wonder twin? What good is the stunt double without the star of the show? What am I now? I hope this new year will help me find a new definition. Maybe there really is such a thing as coming home. 

Friends, Romans, Countymen, Stangers, and whatever: It is my wholehearted wish that 2023 will be your year. May dreams be realized, may rhyme and reason be found, and may hearts heal. I honestly wish you all the best. Actually, my heartfelt wishes for you apply no matter what year you may find yourself reading these words in. 2024, 2525, or the year 9000, I'm sending my love to one and all. The longer your journey, the more twists and turns fate may deal, the more important love becomes. Love, friendship, hearts with minds, is the true gold, the genuine treasure, and the only thing worth a lifetime looking for. May you find it. May you love and be loved. May you belong. May there be peace.