New Year, Same Me That Nobody's Ever Met

Hello there!

I guess before I look back on the year 2023, I will talk about now and what I  hope for the future. 2023 has been a year of many of the same struggles for me,  some internal, some external, some eternal. Some of these, the people around me,  have at least a passing knowledge of. There are also several that only I know  about, for I have never told anyone, save for you, dear reader, between the lines. It's not complicated, but it is. I'm not complicated, but I am. See the perfect sense I make? Yes, yes, it's awesome, isn't it? Well, again, it is, but  it isn't. There is so much I wish I could share with the world. Sadly, it is  because I know this world all too well. And that's why I hold back. Do you ever  feel like a star that could shine all the more brightly if only it were in  another sky, or the lowly plant that could flower, bloom, and blossom if only it  were in another garden? Or maybe you are a human being that could just do so  much better with some new scenery, maybe in another part of the world. Maybe in  another universe? I guess it's actually happening somewhere where all those  quantum particles are in a different place, maybe moving at a different speed,  maybe in a better direction. If all things are indeed possible in places where  the dice fell differently, it seems that maybe I have found myself in the wrong  one. And please permit me to explore the many meanings of what I just said. What  does it mean to find yourself? I know. It's like going a few towns away and  running into someone you know... Or thought you knew. It's like those fun house mirrors, except that it's not the image in the glass that is wrong. It was the image in the mind. And it's really like that tired analogy of a puzzle that has  a definite picture, but not the one on the outside of the box it came in. Only  when said puzzle started coming together did all of the pieces make sense. Have  you ever known something subconsciously, but not on the surface level? Man, is  it one hell of a whammy when it finally hits you. You know? Like turning that  corner and running into a person you thought you knew, and it was you? I guess I  am not making sense to anybody who have not found themselves in that situation.  If so, just take my word for it: It's a heavy, heavy experience. It didn't  happen this year. It didn't happen the year before. It was almost five years  ago, now. Now, as super self-conscious as I am, it has always felt to me like I  was walking with a neon sandwich board sign. But it is apparently not. But there  are differences. Those who never knew me could hardly compare my current self to  this person from 2019. So maybe it is only blazingly obvious to me because I  finally happen to know this person that I apparently am. So, why am I bringing  this up now? Well, firstly, I'm not exactly broaching anything new because it  has been here in these words all along, if only between the lines. Why? Because  it is nothing I quite feel able to spell directly out, but if you know, well,  you know. Secondly, I am sorta bringing this up now because I may soon be faced with a choice either to keep going as I have and suffer a complete breakdown or  just flat out come out and say it, the very thing that might well change my  world. For the better? For the worse? Well, if I had known it to be the former,  I would have said so five years ago. Instead, this has been an internal  struggle, the likes of which I have never seen before. When I realized it was  both liberating and confining. A prison in the shape of a human being, with the  only difference being that I now know why. Still... I have made a few endeavors  to make those figurative walls maybe a bit thinner, a little less opaque. I see  the difference quite clear when I stand before the mirror. And I don't know if I  should feel downhearted or grateful that I seem to be the only one who can truly  see me. In the meantime, I have other problems. These cut hours and this whole  week off work have me seriously worried about my finances. This day in and day  out struggle, trying to maintain a status quo that I have never exactly been  happy with? Well, it's bringing me down. So what do I want? That is the  question, isn't it? Actually, it is more the question to ask just how to go  about it. And that is yet another struggle that has carried over and over from  years past. Then we have this struggle with grief that I fear will never end. I  have found myself in situations where it has hit me so suddenly, so sharply that  I have spontaneously broke down in tears and had to find a corner where nobody  could see me crying because you know we super macho hombres are not supposed to  cry. God damn it. If she were still here, I think she would have been the first  one I would have told about the things I rambled about above. See, it has never  been about safe spaces. She was simply my safe person, somebody I could tell  everything. And I did, almost. Maybe if I had known that time was ticking down,  I would have. But you see, back then, I was still doubting myself at times. I  rarely do these days. And now? I really have no safe person anymore. Maybe it  was our similar internal wiring that made me feel safe talking to her about many  of my internal struggles. We had a few demons we fought in common. And there  were things only she would have understood. It just felt to me that we were  similar operating systems installed on different computers. That's all really.  The rest I can't exactly put into words except to say that I felt safe from  judgment because she understood. It is a hell of a struggle having a different  nervous system than most people on this earth. And even if I didn't tell her  absolutely everything, there are still many things I never said to anyone else.  So you see, in addition to being sad about losing her far too soon, in addition  to the heartbreak of knowing she had plans for the future and dreams to follow,  that she did not deserve to die, I have this selfish reason that I needed my  guardian, my warrior, my safe person who believed in me more than anyone else in  my life ever did. I do not wish to downplay the loss of my mother a mere two  months after I lost my baby sister. I would never want to make her loss seem  minor because it wasn't. Not at all. And it hit me long before I could even sort  out my feelings from the first loss. Truth is, I still have not sorted them out.  My mother was a good person, and of course, I love her. She always meant well.  But there were so many things I could never truly talk to my mother about. With  Momma, we all saw it coming. She had fallen ill the previous July, and we all  saw she was not coming back from it. We saw it coming, but of course, it hurt  like hell. But with my baby sister? Nobody saw it coming. One evening, I was  having a relatively normal text conversation with her, and the next evening was  the absolute worst of my life. I held her hand. I squeezed her hand, and she  squeezed back. I thought she was going to wake up. "She knows I'm here." I  thought. Now, well, I don't know. Such is the recurring hell in my mind. And it  seems I have gotten off topic, so let me summarize. I am starting 2024 with many  of the same struggles from 2023 and before. My finances are a struggle. My grief  is still a struggle. My anxiety and depression are still a struggle, and I have  that one more struggle I have not exactly said, yet I have in little ways here  and there, in my words, in my presentation, in many bits and pieces of subtlety  in these pages. Then there is the simple struggle of this status quo. My life  seems to be like a video loop that plays over and over. I get up and do the same  things every day. And it's not just the work that seems repetitive. Even the  things I used to do for fun seem tired and well trodden. I think that beyond  being world weary and tired of life, that I am just plain bored with life too. I  feel that I have nothing to look forward to but old age and death. And worse?  The death of a person I know I am not. The eulogy would be all wrong, starting  from the first word. And that's just not cool. I seem to have withdrawn into  myself and let my body navigate on autopilot. I have been having heavy thoughts,  some of which I dare not give voice or text to. I am tired of this play and I'm  tired of this role. It is just not me and it never was. And it may so happen in  2024 that I may have no choice but to stand upon the rooftops and shout it out  loud. It's like this: If I am to go down in madness, I don't want it to be over  breaking down from staying a course that I can no longer stand. If I'm going  down, then it is time to ditch the role and appear onstage as myself. Is that so  wrong? Only to the people who would accuse me of "pretending". If there is  anything on social media that pisses me off more than these sarcastic memes that  blatently trivilize people like me, then I don't know what it is. In the words  of Neil Diamond, I am I said, to no one there. And who are they to tell me just  who or what I am? Are they in this mind? Do they feel with this heart? No. Nor  would I dare tell them who they are. And if I am to be damned, let it not be as  a stranger to myself. Much love, my friends. Much love. Now... Let me talk a  little about last year.
 

It looks like I have made it through another year. Hooray? Yes, yes, hooray for  me. Ah, 2023. A definite step up from 2022, that's for sure. Of course, you  can't take away from me what the previous year already took. So, what all  happened in 2023? My youngest son graduated from high school, turned 20, and  found out he was diabetic. We finally had a proper service for my mother, and  she's now at Cypress Creek Cemetery. I have only been there twice. Momma's not  there any more than Marsha's at Piney Grove. I may not have any definite beliefs  about the afterlife, but I know all too well what the light leaving a loved  one's eyes is like, there one minute, gone the next. The distraction of the  noisy construction crew at Piney Grove not withstanding, I did not feel my baby  sister's presence there. But, in the middle of Tallahassee traffic, I swear she  was in the passenger seat beside me, her belongings in the back. It was a  strange feeling of calmness in a situation that would have normally had my  anxiety reeling. She was there that day, but never once have I sensed her in  that cemetery. Marsha's not at Piney Grove, and Momma's not at Cypress Creek. I  don't know where they are, but I most certainly know where they're not. They  have both visited me in my dreams at time. Momma insisting that I take the rest  of her food because she was afraid of me starving, overreacting as usual. Marsha  and I on the sofa watching our favorite TV shows. Whether I was subconsciously  Jedi Mind Tricking myself, I can't say, but those were some very real dreams. At  least they seemed that way. I guess I should try not to think so much about  this, so maybe I'll talk about other things that happened in 2023. I finally  quit the vapes last February. The price jumping up 12 dollars more for a one  week supply was all the motivation I needed. Those scary coughing sessions where  I felt I was drowning on dry land are a rarity now and I am no doubt saving a  lot of money, though these cut hours and higher prices on everything else have  more than offset that. At least I'm not paying someone to slowly kill me  anymore. I got a nasty case of food poisoning last October, exasperated by my  stupidly taking sodium based antacids that sent my blood pressure skyrocketing.  There was a while I quite literally thought I was going to die. I mean,  seriously. I kept expecting to hear certain people calling for me to cross that  line. But even in my delirious state, that never happened. I know I sound like a  drama queen here, but I promise you that was how I felt. I missed two straight  days of work, and you know I've got to be about dead to do that. I'm just  cutting it way too close on these bills. But, I remember I just didn't care at  that moment. I could barely stay on my feet. But it would seem I'm still here  nearly 3 months later. It has really been a continuation of the same old  struggles, fighting the same demons, missing the same loved ones. It's been  another battle in the same old war. I guess if 2024 is going to have a theme,  it's gonna be I'm still here. Making it through January is going to be tough.  The 23rd will make two years without my baby sister. January sucks. It's cold  gloomy and bitter, and it makes me feel cold, gloomy, and bitter. The 23rd was  bullshit. It will always be bullshit. This cold ass month can thaw in the fires  of Hell. But otherwise, how are you? Okay, I am going to do my best to remain as  much on the bright side as I can in this dark time of the year, but I also ask  your forgiveness for the times I know I'll slip up. They say time heals all  wounds, but I seem to be still waiting. Yeah, I know it takes effort on my part,  but there are some things I am simply not ready to let go of. It is hard to  explain that even my bitterness comes from a place of love. Love with nowhere to  go is all grief really is. I believe in the spirit of togetherness and holidays  and yadda yadda Yoda. More importantly, I wish everyone happiness this season,  and I genuinely mean it with all of my heart, all of my love. I'm sorry if I  seem like Scrooge, and I don't mean to be. Let's just say I am dealing with some  ghosts of Christmas past. I've basically got about a month and a bit, that 'ol  double whammy of the holidays and January to get through. I guess if there is an  equivalent time to now, it would be September, birthdays, and whatnot.. But of  course, January is a memory with pictures I wish I could delete from my mind.  But my mind is not exactly a hard drive, and let's just say the operating system  ain't exactly Windows. It takes so much more than time. It takes effort, and  usually, my effort (sorta) works. Except for in two apparent seasons. And it  looks like I'm going to have a whole week off work, so plenty of time (aside  from worrying about bills) to think about it. I never want to forget you. Just  as I cherish you, I want to cherish every memory. I only wish to forget that  very last one. Am I a drama queen? Am I really? Oh no. We macho hombres can't be  caught having emotions, can we? We aren't supposed to need a bit of tenderness,  arms to hold us, and a shoulder to cry on, are we? Oh no, we're not even  supposed to cry at all. It's just the mold and the role, the goddamn role. And I  hate it! Why? because it's not me, and it never was! And I am not even sorry I  don't fit it. This is me. This is the brain that got installed in my head. I  didn't choose it, but I am not going to deny the truth. If that makes me a drama  queen, then so be it. The title in itself implies I have a kingdom of some  sorts, and it implies one more thing: ladies and gentlemen. Maybe I sound silly.  But there is a key difference here. This is not acting. These are my true  feelings, and the only question is whether to express them or not. And I think  it is better that I get them out somewhere, even if only in a place where nobody  I actually know will ever read them. I have a feeling that had I not started  talking about them at least somewhere, I would have long ago gone down in  madness. Now, I am only slowly going down in madness instead. Maybe the end  result will be the same. I can't really say. This extended week off seems to be  detrimental to more than just my finances. This isolation, along with these cold  gloomy days, has been one hell of a downer, mentally. I would imagine that a bit  of warmth and sunshine would go a long way to bringing me back out of this  abyss, but I might as well be wishing for the moon and stars. This weather is  not going to change just to cheer me up. And of course, they say that we are all  responsible for our own happiness. Just who are they? And just what kind of a  life and a future do they have? I am sure that there are different situations  that will make your task of managing your own mental health easier or harder.  Who are they? I mean, really. Are we comparing apples to oranges here? I have  also heard it said that it is so much more comfortable to cry in a mansion with  a cute maid handing you your tissues, than in a broken down house that is slowly  falling apart, or worse, out on the street. yes, yes, we are all responsible for  a lot of things, aren't we? Sometimes, we succeed. Sometimes, we fail.  Sometimes, it's our own damned fault. Sometimes, we did the best we could, and  it just wasn't enough. It is hard to put a blanket expectation on human beings  when we don't even know what it's like. Am I throwing out excuses for myself?  Maybe I am. But I honestly don't know what to do. If there were a magic button I  could press to change everything, I'd be pressing the absolute hell out of it.  But, there is no magic solution. If only I could start completely over with the  knowledge that I have now. I think I would do awesomely. Just give me back my  life and my future. Give me something to look forward to, to work towards. Let  me keep the wisdom and the lesson, but not the pain, not the regret. Give me the  chance to go back knowing what I know now. And if I screw things up the second  time around, it will be all my own fault for having known better. I would fully  deserve this gloomy coldness. But to have thrown all of this at me when I didn't  know any better, to give me painful lessons that I will never get a chance to  apply what I learned the hard way. Well, that's why real life is bullshit. Who  needs it anyway? If I could live in a fantasy, I would. Which reminds me. Do you  want to know the most ironic irony? Everyday people in my real life will never  understand. These are the people who live in my part of the world and speak the  same language that I do. Yet they won't understand me. Then, I found myself  bored and alone, aimlessly surfing the internet, and I found something. It was a  story written by somebody a long way from here, ditto for the actors. They spoke  another language, and I had to read the subtitles. But, do you know what? They  get it. They may not know me or speak the same language as I do, but they get  it! They... Get... me. I sat here speechless and moved in a way that words could  never express. Somebody understands what these feelings are like. And even if I  find myself no less alone than I was before, the thought that somebody out there  would understand gives me just a bit of hope. The small screen suddenly became a  mirror. I swear I saw myself. Never before has a work of art spoken to me like  this. Somebody gets it. Somebody understands. And maybe, just maybe, I could  find that understanding a little bit closer to home. I wasted a good deal of my  life trying to be what people expected me to be, and what exactly did it get me?  It got me right here. This is where conforming to a role left me. And my words,  These weird ramblings? This is how trying to fit a mold has gotten me. And now  that I am trying to be a bit more of my real self? Why it's driving me crazy  too, because even so, I've got to stay in bounds or everything else in my life  may go to shit. Because people just wouldn't understand. How do I know? Because  I see it all the time. Maybe not (yet) directed at me, but they're talking about  me when that talk about others like me, so it might as well be. The biggest bit  of bullshit is when they call it "pretending" because that's where they have it  backwards. Yes, I have done lots of pretending in my life. Every time when I go  out in the world, I have to pretend to be someone I never was. The people they  accuse of pretending? They were the ones brave enough to finally stop  pretending. How ironic to call it pretending when they're finally not. Kudos to  those brave souls. I wish i could be one of them. Maybe I will make that happen  someday? You hear it said all the time around the turn of the year, New Year,  new me. But it's the same old me, albeit somebody you have never met before. 

Man, this cold gloominess has really got me down. I mean, it is oh so typical  for early December and all of January, and it oh so fits my feelings. When I was  a little kid, I was not so different from other kids. I looked forward to  Christmas morning, as did my sisters. Nowadays, I want to hide away until it's  all over. There are several things that feed my anxiety these days. The first is  this week off from work I got from things being so slow. I think I will be okay  if I am careful, but as is my nature, I still worry. My first couple of days  off, the weather was nice. The days were bright, and the sun shown down  unusually strong for this time of year. I opened the doors and let the  spring-like air into the house. I managed to get all of my clothes washed and  dried out on the line. I didn't make my usual Friday grocery trip. I just didn't  really feel like going anywhere. The next days, in contrast, were overcast and  gloomy, more in line with this time of year, more in line with this feeling in  my heart. My financial and job situation has me feeling down. The holidays have  me feeling down. I miss my mother. I miss my baby sister. I feel old and tired  and inadequate. My cycle of lonely / fine with being alone seems to have fallen  on the former. Yes, I am pretty damned lonely. With nothing better to do on this  rainy day (At least nothing I can motivate myself to face) I have spent my time  on my computer, Going to Doomworld to download game levels, killing time on  YouTube, going on Twitter to look at pictures of beauty that will never be  within my reach. Maybe there is something to that fable about the devil in  disguise as an apparition showing endless images of fantasy to distract the  young prince from actually doing anything princely. Then he looks around,  realizing he's gotten old and useless. It's not a very good image, not to a  prince, nor to a princess. I well understand that I am not the center of this  universe, and nobody is under any obligation to care about me. I understand  that. Believe me, I do. So, I am not some angsty teenager (anymore) lamenting  that nobody cares in some ploy for sympathy. Nobody has to care. They all have  their own lives and their own troubles. I understand that. I just wish there  were another human being that I could be close to, who would want to be close to  me, somebody to care when they never had to care. I honestly would sell my soul  to any devil or demon who would offer just that. Of course, one has to have a  soul worth taking, and it sure seems the devil's making no deals. I would like  to think that I am indeed worthy. I am not a bad person. I have my flaws, and  man, have I screwed up in my younger days, but I do have empathy, I do have a  heart. I know this because it's hurting pretty damned deeply right now. I spent  years of self reflection after my ex left me. I had to know, had to understand  what I had done to have deserved such treatment. I just couldn't understand. It  happened so fast, and I never saw it coming. It's been 15 years, 15 years, and  there is still so much I do not understand. Was I perfect? Of course not. My  long conclusion is that I was good to her. I spent a long time away, working. I  really had no choice in that matter. I was the sole breadwinner for a family of  five. I mean, that was my role, right? Secondly, I had known my ex long before  we ever got married, and it should have been obvious that a spouse and a family  was not for her. Truly, it is nice to dream about getting married and having  children. One can conjure some pretty pictures in their heads. Babies are a bit  of work, but they're not really that hard to take care of. Feed them, burp them,  hold them, rock them to sleep, and put them in their crib. Yes, it's scary when  they get sick, and sometimes it takes forever to get them settled so you can  sleep. But still. The real thing is that babies don't stay babies for very long.  They start crawling, walking, and running. One has to run a bit to keep up with  them. I know. It was certainly true with my three. A parent can't exactly go off  and do their own thing when watching them. I guess you could say I went to work,  but I took that job because I needed to provide for my family. It was my role.  The thing about becoming a parent is that there is going to be a long time where  your life will not be your own. You're going to be day after day after day  consumed by the responsibilities to your children. In a fantasy, it all goes  away after you wake up, and you can go on about your life however you want to.  In reality, you've got to take the good days with the bad. Kids can be  exhausting. And you can't hold them to the same standards as you would an adult.  Kids are just kids, sometimes. You've got to pick your battles, where to be  lenient, and where to be strict and unyielding. And you've got to let them have  a childhood. It can be a lot of stress, and I just couldn't be both at work and  at home at the same time. I really had no choice. It broke my heart every time I  had to go. I guess I should have known that everything was falling apart towards  the end. I found myself spending the weekdays working at my job and the weekends  cleaning the house and fixing the meals. Of course, what I didn't know back then  was that she was farming out the kids to relatives and running around as if she  were single. And I never even suspected. It was December 31st, 2008, 15 years  ago today, when I was discarded like an empty Pepsi can in the Junior Foodmart  parking lot, abandoned when I went into the store. Do you know? It wasn't just  the leaving, but just how callously and unexpectedly it was done. And that was  when the self reflection started. What had I done to have been treated in such a  manner? And after all these years, of asking myself what I did wrong, after  raising my three boys alone from the ages of 5, 7, and 9 to the ages of 20, 22,  and 24, I have come to the conclusion that no, I am not a bad person, and even  if I were, that was not the reason she did this to me. The burden of parenthood  was too much for her. The fact that I couldn't provide 24-hour companionship was  too much for her. far easier, it is for a scumbag without a job (but that is  another story). I am certainly no angel, but I did not deserve to have been  treated so badly. Maybe it was punishment for my ignoring the warning signs in  the first place. See, loneliness makes one downplay those red flags. She had  appeared out of nowhere, offered me what I thought was love, gave me attention,  wanted to play the role of a loving wife, wanted to play the fantasy of a big  family with all smiles and no troubles ever. And I let my loneliness make my  decisions for me. Monsters into angels, as Jewel Kilcher sings. It's ironic how  I relate to so many breakup songs sung by women. If only you knew. But no, I am  not a bad person. I may be a mess. I may be limited by my anxiety. And I am  definitely over the freaking hill. But I have a heart, and it's longing for  something I fear I will never have. I once thought I had it, but that was an  illusion. Leave it to Jewel's lyrics how a heart starved for love can indeed  hallucinate. And it seems I will spend the rest of my life (however long) asking  myself where to go from here, yet never moving at all. Sometimes, I feel that  life and so many things in life is a trap, quicksand that seems like solid  ground from the outside. So many heavenly gates that lead straight to hell, and  you don't know, can never realize you're in hell until those gates slam hard  behind you. Not all hells are the same. It is only the feeling that lets you  know where you are. A Venus Flytrap and a spider's web are two different things.  But both are hell for the fly. Both are fatal. Does it really matter how one  dies as much as it mattered how they lived? Gone is gone, and an eternity minus  a few years is still an eternity, right? Heavy thoughts, man, heavy thoughts.  Should I be concerned that I am no longer afraid that I no longer seem to give a  shit? Just don't make it prolonged, painful, or scary, and it probably won't  worry me at all. It's the balance of being afraid to live against the fear of  dying. Ever stand on the middle of a seesaw? Have you ever been surfing? Heck,  if I had a bucket list, I might add going all cowabunga on the waves. But the  only list I have is my fucket list, and it's a pretty damned long list at that.  It would seem to me that my words have gotten a bit dark, rolling in like those  storm clouds in the gulf. The only real solution is to just clean cup and move  it on down the line. A heavy heart can never truly sing. I need the spring, the  sun, and its warmth. Never before has it seemed so far away. The fact that one  could feel so cold yet still be among the living is kinda confusing. Dear  Universe, my only friend, Dearest Obliva, Beautiful Empress Of The Void, How I  long for the safety of your arms. I know you could take away the pain. I know  you could dry my tears in a way that it will seem they never have existed,  fading away as I will, lost to the event horizon of your arms. Let me dwell with  you in a place where pain has no power, where time has no meaning, where regrets  return to dust, drifting in space for all time where they can never harm anyone.  To believe in nothing at all is to still believe in you, and I do. Forever and  ever amen. My love is yours, Oblivia, and I'm waiting here for you to claim me. The realization that nothing is forever comforts me, yet breaks my heart. It comforts me because I know Oblivia will gather me into her arms someday. It breaks my heart because Marsha should still be alive and well, but she's gone. The pain of her loss adds to my weariness, and I am tired, friends, I am so tired. Worlds spin and worlds end and not even time goes on and on. Is there really any right or wrong in being weary of existing between the bookends of time, as half of a matching set that has lost its meaning by no longer being part of the whole? How could it not be understandable to be simply tired of it all? They'll tell you to toughen up and call you a cupcake. As if cupcakes were a bad thing or something. I like frosted mint icing on mine thank ya very much. Nobody was waiting on the pity train you keep saying derailed. They were waiting on a little understanding. Strange, isn't it, that it might be different in someone else's mind, that people can simplify and summarize another human being when you've never felt with their heart. Maybe it is not so bad as that. This is just an observation for me to add to all those said before. The difference? That I can freely admit that I do not know and clearly state that I am willing to listen and learn and maybe empathize. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is no license to trivialize another human being. There is a quiet dignity to the void, a peaceful tranquility I once knew and will know again. I know who and what I am.

There is only one alternative to this focus on mortality: New Year, and the same me you have  never met before. Allow me to introduce myself. Hey it's me, first and third of  three, depending on how you look at it. And as I go merrily down this stream of  life, I have finally made a decision. This decision is that if this stream ever  becomes a waterfall... If this raft becomes a barrel... If it ever becomes  obviously inevitable that I'm about to be going over the edge, Then I am going  to do so as myself. I will not be called crazy for breaking down from trying to  fit this damnable role. No, I'll be called crazy for prancing my way over the  edge.... As myself. Once again, allow me to introduce myself.  They think they  know me, But they don't. Only you, dearest reader, dearest universe, dearest  Romans, robots, and strangers might have a clue. They never could. It is not  their fault, really. It's the world, and especially this part of the world that  makes it so difficult to truly express my feelings. It is just the way of  society, the role, and the mold, and the figurative chains that bind us to what  and who we are expected to be. And with that said, I wish you, my dear friends,  Romans, robots and strangers all the best for 2024. I wish you all the best and I send you all of my love, all of my love. May I be here joyously one year from now. May we all be joyously here one year from now. May all hearts find a home, may all souls find belonging and peace. Let there be light and love, and may we all be ourselves in the light of the truth of meaning. 

May we all be free.

Solstice Thoughts IV

Hello, Universe. What is the world up to?
 

Me, I am listening to the planets and getting random texts from restaurants. Okay. Maybe that needs a bit more explanation. I am listening to YouTube videos that take each planet's magnetic field and convert it into sound. I am currently on Saturn. Wait. Don't call the men in the white coats yet. I mean, I am on Earth, currently listening to Saturn. Meanwhile, I just got a text from a steakhouse in Pensacola saying my table will be ready soon? Really? First of all, I am a few hours away. Secondly, I wasn't planning on going. I told you guys I was on Saturn! Hey, we're engaged. See the rings? To think I used to laugh at my own jokes. Wocka wocka wocka. I guess this is going to be one of those blog entries that might require my usual disclaimer. You know, out of my head and onto the page? Yes, exactly. Some of my thoughts will be getting heavy and dark like a storm cloud on the horizon. I guess literal storm clouds are nature's way of venting, and these figurative clouds happen to be my way. And there is a very important reason for that. See, this world would never understand. If I am to remain a functional gear in the machinery of society, I must vent here so as not to vent elsewhere. I must share this part of myself in a place where snap judgments can't so easily be tied to my name. I hope that despite the storm clouds, despite the occasional bolt of lightening, despite the rain, I can still be seen as a gentle human soul with heart, both capable and deserving of love and understanding. The clouds went here, so I can hopefully be brighter elsewhere. Much love, my friends, all of my love. It's way too gloomy today. I really could use some sunshine right about now. True, true, we are all responsible for our own happiness or the lack thereof, and of course, the weather is just the weather. Still, a bit of sunshine would make the job of climbing out of this case of dem ol bluez so much easier. Sometimes, it's the tide. Sometimes, it's the circumstances. And it can also be both. This is just one of those things about being human. You know, I'd make an awesome robot, right? Damn, I get so lonely sometimes. I guess I am different enough to be out of phase and old enough to be out of touch. It is a very lonely life. There seems to be no place at all to seek friendship or any kind of human connection. Social media is a waste of time and a one-way ticket to a plethora of mental problems, depression among them. Seeking absolution, validation in a realm of comparison such as that digital abyss will never lead anywhere good. It is the fault of no one, just the nature of the place. And here is how it is a danger to mental health. Comparison, comparison, comparison. What do I see when I go online? The family that can afford to fly halfway across the country for a nice vacation and actually afford to buy gifts for each other. The happy couple, oh, so in love. The fancy houses. The nice cars. The wonderful jobs. Believe me, if I don't have it, it is well on display. It must be nice to be able to afford vacations to exotic locations. It must be nice to live in a nice house, park that brand new car in that fancy garage. It must be nice to keep warm, snuggling up to someone who is so damned perfect and totally in love with you. Me, I have my vehicle, my old house, and my struggle to keep the lights on and food in the fridge, left alone in every conceivable way except for the one way I wish to be. All this while I watch everything fall apart. But on social media, everyone seems to be living the life. Do you want to feel lonely, like a failure, like a loser? Just log in. Social media has all this and more. Yet I know that so much of this online image is illusion. That fancy vacation and those gifts are running up some monstrous credit card debt. That new car and fancy house are just a late payment or three within repossession or foreclosure. That perfect couple could be arguing all the time behind the scenes and / or be running around on each other with multiple partners. And those 'friends' on that list? They're not my friends. At least not by that metric. Real friends are not some list floating on some aging server in a big Impersonal data center. Real friends are what existed long before such a thing as social media was invented. And I can't determine if being old enough to remember that era is a blessing or a curse. Phone calls, hand-written letters, sharing a cup of coffee. It seems things were a bit more real back in the 20th. Maybe that's just me. See, for me, the holidays and January after aren't my best time of the year. If there ever were times I needed a genuine friend, it is now. So many of us, myself included, have trouble finding real human interaction, so we turn to synthetic human interaction. We might as well go full-on and let it be robots programmed to emulate love and affection, to never abandon, never disappoint, and live forever. Ah, robots to care and pay attention, having that special place in their databanks to store the answer to the question, how are you feeling today? It would be light years beyond any of today's mess. Could you imagine being told how beautiful you are with every picture you post, with everything you say from the heart? Would it really matter if it were only some program? This must be one of those hallucinations of the heart that Jewel Kilcher sang about. Truly, truly, goodbye Alice In Wonderland.  

Today, I heard from my baby sister in a sense. A social media memory that just jumped up and took a hold of my heart. A simple post on my page telling me she loved me. Damn it, now I'm crying, and I'm at work. Not the ideal place for an emotional display. It is a volatile mix of being so down over losing her, yet it almost seems she wanted me to hear this today. I love you too, Sis. I always will. Damn I hate the holidays. They bring nothing but pain. I would say I am looking forward to all this Christmas stuff to be over with. But then again, I am not exactly a fan of January either. This was true even before 2022, but only more so since then. Guess I'll set my heart on February 15th, National 50 Percent Priced Candy and Flowers Day. I wonder if I'd get any weird looks if I sent them to myself? Yep, weird looks of jealousy alright. Hey, I wouldn't blame 'em. Getting flowers from such a unique and rare individual is kinda nice. Maybe I'll someday be able to program a robot to send me candy and flowers, and tell me they love me. It's no longer beyond our technology. I'm sure there's some startup out on the net that would be happy to provide me with exactly that, for a price. What a sad existence. I often wonder why I keep on. A good question. As Admiral Akbar would attest, the thing about traps is that they are far easier to fall into than to fall out of. And in this real-world non-fandom human universe, traps can be a whole lot more subtle than an incomplete DeathStar orbiting the forest moon of Endor. And friends, if I ever had my life to live all over again, I would have made several distinctly different choices. And one might be surprised as to which and when. I know part of my endless mantra is my declaring this wish that life were more like a video game, where I could save before every choice, have several save slots to go back to, have cheat codes for money and stuff, and far more importantly, save my sister, make it so she could never die. I would also like the ability to quit and start over. Who knows, I may already have that option. Can you prove to me that one's life does not reset when they die? No, you can't. Now, if there were only a way to send all the wisdom sans the pain into the next loop. If not, a reset would be far worse than trying to stick around. There is no point in starting over if you're just going to make the same painful mistakes again. Give me the loving embrace of Oblivia any eternity over that. Shouldn't I have the freedom to just shout out loud, "To hell with this shit, I quit!"? Good freakin Question. These are heavy thoughts. I manage to fight off again and again, but they come back and back and back again. To think on the border of sleep just how wonderful it would be to never wake up again, to find myself in the arms of Oblivia, or in the presence of my sister. Just what does life and reality have to offer me anymore? I can't think of anything at the moment. I have long ago grown weary of this life. I have merely been going through the motions for years. It is only that bit of my real self that gets to show now and again that gives me the will to stay. This is me, and I really don't care what anybody else thinks. It is only a matter of survival, geography, and biology that keeps me trapped here. But I'm sick of it. I am so damned sick of it. Sometimes, I think that if there really was a grand designer, he must be into sadistic, insensitive, cruel practical jokes, knowing who I was and putting me here anyway. I might not have had this figured out, but for a half decade or so, but I can damn sure remember feeling that something didn't jive long before I knew exactly what it was. Surely, one would have known I was a bad fit for this mold. Look at me. No, really see me for once. Pay some attention to that human being behind the curtain! Okay, okay, okay. I am most likely not making any sense to anyone but myself right now. But in case there is a miracle that I actually am, know dear friend that the struggle is real.  

You know it's quite a bummer to think this is all I'll ever be. Fantasy beats a reality devoid of hope. If all hope is lost for so many things, maybe there is an illusion I can hold onto. All I really need is a bit more cash and an inner sanctum only I can enter. If I could have this impregnable sanctuary, then I could indeed live the dream and actually be happy for a good portion of my remaining years. Think of it as the Batcave, though I'm not exactly Batman as neither statement in said word describes me. Poison ivy without the poison, maybe? Even Bruce Wayne needs a place to go when he gets tired of being Bruce Wayne all the time. I guess the downside of living this illusion would be the sad fact that each year, I'll just continue to get older, and the illusion and the human hiding within it will become more and more pathetic. But what else am I to do? Is there any real way to find fulfillment in reality? Is it even possible? Look, I'm not going to trip over a suitcase full of money. There is no hero on the way to rescue me from this place. And worse? The worst is that while the looking glass has come quite close to the inner soul at times, it will become sadly less and less likely as the years pass. And although I need no recognition from anyone else, I at least need said validation from myself. If I can't have that, I will forever have nothing. And I'm not sure I could bear to live like that. To me, this would be a fate worse than death, no contest at all of being in the loving arms of Oblivia. Why can't I just be myself? I do not wish to bother anyone. All I want to do is to just be me. This does not have to be obnoxiously on display. This does not have to be anything at all. The barriers are numerous. They are financial, temporal, geographical, situational, and biological. In a time that already seems long ago, this mindset gave me hope and a reason. Now, this impossibility of fruition is what really brings me so down. So again, the question is, what should I do now? Everything has come full circle and I find myself in this same desolate place. What should I do now? Should I give up and pretend I never tried? I don't see how I could do that. When I long ago realized that the mold was not my soul, I could no longer just ignore and accept. It was just not possible anymore. I may not have told the world, but I allowed my heart to be, and that is something I could never go back on. There were too many things in my life past and present that didn't make sense and suddenly did. It is awful hard to unlearn what took so long to realize. It would be a major step backward, and I just don't think it's possible. I am who I am. While it is still my choice as to what kind of person to be, I can not change the core of my being. Any attempt to do so would be a transparent lie. I am who I am, and I could never be someone or something else. This is me, ladies and gentlemen. Call me silly if you want to. Call me crazy, and who knows? Maybe I am. If this is what madness is, then I accept that I am mad indeed. Ladies and Gentlemen, I have earned every quirk and quark. Let's have a cup of tea, shall we? With any luck, the door mouse will give us a rhyme. I really do feel trapped in this situation, place and time, where and when aside from a miracle, there really is but one escape, merely one way out in that great reset. And even with this, I just don't know. All I really know is that I am just ignorant enough about it to still fear it. The more I learn, the less I really know. I guess there comes a time in this life when one must determine which hell is the lesser one, whether oblivion is the new heaven, and whether those that I held so dear is waiting, whether she is waiting, whether my true soul awaits as well. I am tired, Sis. I'm so tired. Everybody is too busy dealing with their own lives, too absorbed in their own problems to care. Is any of this their fault? Of course not. I have nobody to blame but myself and my own bad decisions. Marsha, I just don't know what to do. I guess if I just keep toughing it out, there will come a day when the choice will be taken out of my hands. Wouldn't it be ironic to consider myself to be punished by a long life when part of this pain and guilt is over the fact that you were taken from me way too soon? How did Tom Hanks put it about being infected with life? Could I really stand to live as long as our grandpa did, possibly finding myself completely alone? Then again, how could this feeling be any more complete than it already is now? If it can, then I most certainly don't want to know. Well, maybe now you see why I started this blog entry with my little disclaimer. Was I right or wrong about my thoughts getting heavy and dark? The thing is if I do not truly share the depth of my feelings, then writing wouldn't help me at all. Trust me that I do feel better for a good while after a bare my soul. Do you know what I like most about my blog here? Even though I have linked it on my social media pages, nobody there ever really reads it. Nobody's going to go through all that trouble or reading for little 'ol me. Yet, I am happy about that. Why? Because I can really be myself here. I am safely behind a great wall of text, so far one megabyte strong. Damn, That's a lot of text! And you, dear reader, are prithy to several of my greatest secrets. It is true that I hold back on a couple of things even here, but even those things are still quite clear between the lines. At least it seems to me I have practically been shouting them out loud. You know, dear reader, don't you? Still, I am not quite ready to take that final step just yet. Maybe in time, I will develop the courage or the madness to spell it out for the whole world to see in so many words. Meanwhile, I can vent here to Doctor Blog-ieo. It's cheap therapy, and you can't beat the price. Does it help? I think it does. I say a lot here, I wish I could say elsewhere. No doubt I would have freaked out already had I not had at least someplace to say it. I've got to be functional enough to fake it. The world gets the fakeness. You get the realness here. I can't really know if anybody out there really wants it but here it is, nonetheless, if for nothing but posterity. It's like that graffiti saying I was here, with a bit more explanation. There is also that freedom Janis Joplin sang about having nothing (or not much) left to lose. When I reach the point when I feel that way, I might as well hold nothing back in these words. I might as well be known as who I really am. But for now, Doctor Blog-ieo it is. Only he (And you my fair reader) need know just how far I've gone. Oh I'm harmless as can be, but totally out of my head. Like I said, I have earned every quirk and quark and bleep and blip. If anybody has ever earned it honestly, it was me. And I'll tell you something, dear reader. A full day of drawing, coloring, basket weaving, three square meals, and no worries is starting to sound pretty damn good to me. Hell, maybe I'd even make some friends. We can all sit on the lawn and laugh at all the crazy people on the outside. Look at all those people with their jobs and their relationships and their mortgages! Harr Harr Harr! I guess, I am talking a bit weird here. I have just had a lot on my mind of late. Sometimes these heavy thoughts get in the way of the words. And the words themselves get in the way of explanation. It is something I'll try again and again and again, until there is no longer any need. In the meantime, all of my love to anywhere it may be needed. I well understand that need. It's like the warm sunshine on a cold day.

Zom A or Zom B

Good morning, friends, Romans, robots, and strangers. 

And you, Universe, especially you. 

 

Help me, Universe Kenobi. You're my only hope. 

Let The Mad Tea Party Begin! 

December 10th was a birthday of sorts for an old friend. Doom turned 30 years old. I've been playing that game for almost that long. Early 1994, when my Dad downloaded the shareware version. It was awesome to see the two Johns, Romero and Carmack, spend an hour long Twitch stream talking about making that awesome game. Romero made my favorite level E1M7 The Computer Station. I know my way around that level better than I do some places in real life. And if I were a former human, that would be where I'd hang out. Computers and stuff, right? It is good to see Romero making new levels to this very day. It is awesome that Carmack released the source code back in 1997. Now, Doom runs on everything, even a pregnancy test. Congratulations, it's a Caco! I know all the monsters just as well as I know the levels. I even have nicknames for some of them. I remember thinking the imps looked a lot like those creatures from the sewers in the movie C.H.U.D, so I call imps chuddies. The Mancubus from Doom II sounds like he's saying, "Yo mamma!" When he sees you. And I'm like, "What did you say, punk?" And those former humans in the hanger, I am well acquainted with those guys. They're always back whenever I want to play. See, nobody ever really dies in doom. In fact, if you make levels and especially if you record demos, Doom can give you a bit of immortality. I can still watch my 20-something year old self playing through the levels. I have recorded many demos since then, so as long as those files remain, a bit of me will, too. There are also levels made by people who are long gone and a very few even made by me. (I recreated the diner from C.H.U.D and filled the level with chuddies) Now you too can be officer John Goodman. If you're a decent Doom player, your fate will not be as grizzly as his was in the movie. But yes, Doom has a strange way of granting just a little immortality. Just as those zombiemen in the very first level are back as soon as the game starts, so will I return if you load the right files into the game. Nobody ever really dies in Doom, not even the monsters. Everybody, human or otherwise, gets another chance. This game has been my company in some very lonely times of my life. Well, other computer games, too, like visual novels. Yep, fighting monsters and dating anime girls. And don't confuse the two. Of course, the fact that there are monster girls and HDoom really adds the confusion. It would appear that consuming too many berserk packs has had some strange side effects on Doomguy. Maybe he needs to see a doctor when he gets back to Earth. Hey, the addons people make only add to the staying power of Doom. You get Star Trek, Star Wars, and the best yet Army of Darkness Doom. "I got a bone to pick with you!" I love that movie. Skeletons with attitude. And, of course, I have literally thousands of levels. Hell, I can't be far from a million. Put it this way, I have about 50 gigabytes of Doom stuff, with most levels being only a few megabytes a piece, if even that. I have more than I could ever play, yet I keep getting more. I am weird like that. I guess I must pursue anything and everything that might grant me a little happiness. If this means acquiring Doom levels I may or may not play, then so be it. If it means music that I very rarely listen to, movies I seldom ever watch, just to have and preserve, then so be that too. I'll do whatever it takes to keep my head above these figurative dark waters. And even with all this, it is still one hell of a job. 

There are days when the phase inducers are overloading, the Heisenberg compensators are decoupling, the warp containment field is destabilizing, and the damned dilithium crystals are fracturing. You're giving it all she's got, and you can nay do any more. But fret not, lads and lasses. We're gonna make it somehow, even when it seems we cannaduit. We will. We'll make it to the next planet so that the cap'n can romance the next hot alien babe while we're stuck on the ship a'fixin all the stuff. Wait! That is a nay fair at'all! Man, my finances keep getting worse and worse. The good news is that on January 1st, my youngest son and I will have some decent health insurance coverage. The bad news is that my hours at work are still severely cut, meaning my income is dangerously close to being less than the total of my bills. Well, it would be had I not needed silly things like food and gasoline. And I can't run my finances in the way the government runs theirs. Well, I might have to anyway at least this month. See, I have two medicines that are going to run out well before the end of December. My vehicle that I still owe a ton of money on has a payment due that really needs to come out of this check and is 2000 miles overdue for an oil change. And I want to keep up good maintenance on it so I can keep it for many years to come, hopefully well beyond the duration of the payments. My auto insurance is astronomical because of the full coverage and the fact that my 20 year old son is on it. Simply put, I was already living paycheck to paycheck and trying my damnedest not to slip further into debt before all of this. In other words, I am about to have to talk to the kiddo about starting to cover some of his own bills. I hate to do that, but I really don't want to have to get a different job. Aside from the lousy pay and the crappy hours, I do happen to like my job. And see, I know well firsthand how hard it is to find a job that one doesn't absolutely dread. I'd rather not give that up. Unfortunately, if this pattern persists, I may have no choice. It's ironic, all these people spending extreme buckazoids on Christmas and yadda yadda Yoda, And here I am just trying to keep a way of going, meds for myself and my son, the lights on and food in the fridge. The struggle is real, my friends. Inflation does not help the poor if everything's going up except for their wages. I really am getting close to the financial breaking point, with the mental and emotional breaking points not so far behind. It sucks. Really, it does. I had better change subjects before I start to cry. Clean cup move down. 

Okay, okay, okay. What do you get when you cross The Walking Dead with Sesame Street? "A is for arguing, B is for brains, Z is for zombie!" Seriously, they wouldn't be up and walking around had y'all not woke them up with all that fussing. Wake me up like that, and I'd probably bite, too. Okay, here we go. Jonathonian Fact 367: Cold weather really erodes my morning resolve. The room is cold, and the blanket's warm and cozy. It is so easy to delay and even easier to accidentally drift off back to sleep. I really got to work on that. Just five minutes is never just five minutes. Luckily, I've never been late, but I sure hate to have to rush, especially with only myself to blame. Rip Van Winkle ain't got nothin on me. Speaking of cold weather, Of all the Christmas songs out there, the ones I understand the least are the people singing so joyfully and cheerfully about being out in the cold. Not me, Jack. My song would be "Chillin in an indoor comfy land." Okay, okay, okay. Work had their annual sexual harassment meeting yesterday. But wait, I already know how to do that! Kidding. Far be it from me to go anywhere I'm not wanted. But anyway, they packed a bunch of us into this itty bitty conference room. Not fun. A closed in space filled with a lot of people covers two of my favorite phobias. Get me to drive in a big city, and you're 3 for 3 and ready for the playoffs. Not to mention, I had to drive to a fair sized city to visit my dad in the hospital on Saturday, so I am definitely covered on all three this week. Of course, I handle all awesomely well when I absolutely need to. Still, I can't promise I'll be having any fun. Life of late has been anything but. Okay, how about some good news for a change? Thanks to a bit of sudden good fortune, I am well stocked on food. I think I've got enough where I can keep a super short grocery list and put most of that money towards my other bills instead. Hooray? Okay. It's strange how the heavy thoughts creep in. They may be only heavy in the figurative sense, but I swear I can feel the weight. Some of my heaviest thoughts revolve around time and its way of taking away from a human being almost everything that matters. Sometimes slowly, bit by bit. Other times in a single day with no foreknowledge, a blindside, like a tidal wave that takes everything in its wake. Which hurts worse? I have experienced both in the ones that I love and still can't say. It might as well be the difference between losing one limb or another. And I am not just talking about mortality here. Time takes so much from us while we yet still live. It takes our strength, it steals our independence, takes away the people we love, and it does one hell of a number on our dignity. And it hurts my heart to see anyone that I love go through this. Now, losing them all at once? That is a hell of its own. Tell me how you can be one with a universe that surrounds me, a universe I am even a part of, yet seem so far away sometimes? Like so much that I have experienced in this life, it just does not compute. It's like both time and space are constantly warping, forever changing. Sometimes it seems forever ago, that dark day when I held your hand and watched as you were leaving, that moment when I couldn't even say goodbye. Then there are moments when it was just yesterday. Sometimes you seem so far away, yet there are times when I could swear you are right here with me. I'd like to say I understand, but I don't. I painfully wish that I could. Geesh, didn't I already clean cup move down these kinds of thoughts earlier? Heavy thoughts and boomerangs, horseshoes and hand grenades, beer and pretzels, all like peas and carrots again. I would say I'm finally going mad, but I'm already there. How can one go where they already are? Wouldn't this mean I was somewhere else first? Faking sanity can be a real bitch. I'm so grateful that I am not forced to do so here. That would be a travesty. I guess I should grateful that I am not exactly riding high, on top of the world, breaking into song, annoyingly happy. See, when you're at the zenith there is only one way left to go, down down, down. So maybe it is good to have a bit of sky above me. Even if it's grey, there's blue above the clouds, and even a bit of rain can be beautiful at times. My world is messed up. It is a world missing so many of the people I love most. Then there are those who I love with equal ferocity that seem to be barely hanging on. Everything's screwed. This game of life is glitched as fuck. I am tired, I feel old and past my prime. I know the chances for a lot of things have passed, but maybe, just maybe, there is something even better if I can just figure out what it is. It may be glitchy as hell, but the game's not over. I guess one could hope, but your guess is as good as mine. Time will tell, but time is a jerk. Meanwhile, it is time for yet another clean cup move down. It has been a productive, but hell of a long day, My friends... Soooo. I am about to eat a good supper, and then sleep so deep that even all the Pharaohs of Egypt would be impressed..

Think Bubba Ho-Tep Meets Rip Van Winkle. 

Chaos And Circumstances

I'm sitting here in a hospital room watching my Dad sleep. Rest is a healing  thing. He's got a way to go to be fully back to himself, but I truly believe  he's headed in the right direction. He was a lot worse last night. You know that  saying that when it rains, it pours. Still, I am a staunch believer in being  there and taking care of the ones who were always there for you. I have mentioned how driving in high traffic unfamiliar areas brings on my anxiety. There are not very many people on this earth for whom I would put away my fear,  suppress my panic, and brave the crazy traffic of this certain Alabama city for,  but he is most certainly one of them. The traffic on the main road here kind of  reminds me of certain scenes in "The Road Warrior." Hit the gas, or it's your ass kinda traffic. My heart was beating like the drum roll in Rowdy Roddy Piper's theme. The only reason I bring up the fact that it terrifies me, scares the living hell out of me, is to express the fire I would walk through for my one remaining parent. The one sister I have left will be back tomorrow to relieve me, and I am already working up the courage to face the drive home. Once I clear the city and hit the highway, I'll be fine, but it's that scary bit before that  worries me. I've gotta be Mad Max one more time. Then I'll be on the highway,  and I'll be alright. I'll make it home and hopefully get some rest before having to get up and go to work. You'll have to forgive me for probably talking a bit weird here. Lack of sleep is an interesting trip, man. Time is funny, you know?  Combine time and mind, and you get one hell of a distortion. They say that nations come and go, that empires rise and fall, that stars shine brightly, then  explode into brilliant light and colorful nebula, such stunning beauty to  overwhelm the eyes. They talk about deep time and the age of the universe. They  talk about human beings just trying to get through their day ten thousand years  ago. Still, all I know are these few decades proceeded by a certain day in the early 1970s that I can't even remember. And friends, I have no reason to doubt  all that becomes obvious by looking out into the universe. And, of all the  things I do not believe in, the most frightening would be reincarnation. Because friends I have after long consideration come to the conclusion that I do not want to do this shit again. This one happens to be more than enough as it is. It  has been one hell of a fun house ride. I can't really muster the enthusiasm for another go. I am so tired of this game. Worry is one thing. But, anxiety? Now, that's one hell of a drug that is not even a drug, never ingested, inhaled, or injected, but damned if it isn't already built in to some of us, and a bad trip to boot. That's the reason I can understand it so well in others. I can see it plainly. It makes us weird sometimes. It speaks louder than what we really mean sometimes. That's why I know and understand, knew, and understood. I have learned over the years to step outside of myself, but there are times when it  might take a while before I can do that. Unfortunately, the world and life situations don't always give us good timing on that. This is what I understood about my baby sister that nobody else could see. It was a struggle we had in common, an enemy we fought together, a demon we both knew intimately well. I have had to talk her through panic attacks, and she's had to do the same thing for me. When you have faced down the same beast a million times, you begin to recognize its nature, no matter where and how he appears. There really is a common thread. It is not as much a matter of misery loving company, as it is  knowing that you're not alone, of knowing you do not have to fight this demon  all alone. She was my guardian warrior, and I tried to be the same for her. Now,  I must fight on my own. I miss my warrior. I miss my hero. I miss my friend. I miss my sister, here and gone in the blink of an eye. As I know, I keep saying, I can't help but say, there is so much of me, even now, nearly two years on, that just can't accept that she is gone. You never know how much another human being defines you until your definition has gone from your life, forever. Death is permanent, too much so. I keep stumbling across the fact that she can never come back. There is a whole part of my brain that says this does not compute. I know I've said and said this over and over again. I guess it helps to write about it, to vent, to get it out. It makes faking like I haven't been losing my mind these last several years, oh so much easier. Clean cup, anyone? Move down?  Is it your unbirthday too? What a small world this is!

Dad's still sleeping, and I don't want to disturb him. Goodness knows. He needs  the rest and the healing. Meanwhile, Man, am I bored. There is nothing to do in this hospital room but write for my blog and glance at the TV. The TV has some political pundit with one hell of an enormous bald head yammering on and on about stuff I could give a shit about. It is basically empty words for empty heads who can't think for themselves. I pity anyone who lives for such babble. I don't care for politics at all. If I wanted to hear somebody talking out of their ass, I'd request a fart joke. Really, this man would be better served by playing a Klingon on Star Trek. I might be glare blind from the refraction, but it looks like the dude already has the warrior ridges halfway formed without even putting the Klingon makeup on. Kahless would be proud until he opened his mouth and started spewing political nonsense. Then he'd draw his bat'leth and put him out of our misery. Glory to the Empire!Speaking of makeup, they really need to give him something to reduce the shine. It's a good thing that  those old cathode ray tubes are a thing of the past for most televisions in the 2020s. That shiny bald brightness would have long burned out a television tube.  I can almost hear the zaps and smell the electrical burns. At least, Telly Savales, Yule Brenner, and Patrick Stewart make / made baldness look awesome and  drive / drove the ladies crazy. This guy? Nah. He needs a Klingon makeover stat. I guess I should not be so superficial and mean, but he is talking politics, so there ya go. Perhaps today is a good day to di- err, I mean shine. Q'plah! If  King Neptune blinded the patrons of the Krusty Krab, this guy would turn all of Bikini Bottom into a vast wasteland. Poor Spongebob! The flash would be so bright that people would accuse the USA or France of violating the nuclear test ban treaty. This man could move to the coast of Maine, get a spinning chair, sit it on a giant rock, turn round and round and round, and make a damn convincing lighthouse. If it wasn't permanently attached, this man could go bowling without the ball. A bit of face paint and a wide brimmed hat, and he could dress as Saturn for Halloween. Take the hat off, and he could be Uranus. I tell you whut, I got a million of 'em. Now, some time has elapsed, and the human bowling ball has been replaced with some dude with a flat top haircut who thinks he's some sort of a stand-up comedian. Truth is, there are even Seinfeld episodes that are funnier than him. And Seinfeld episodes are about half as funny as accidentally banging  one's shin against a trailer hitch. Moreover, he looks a lot like Otho from the Beetlejuice movie, and that dude couldn't even follow a handbook worth a damn. Now, if the ghost with the most showed up to harass him every five minutes, then his show might be a real laugh riot. Then there are the commercials. I just want  to reach through the screen and throttle the My Mustache Pillow Dude. Nobody gives a shit about your gigantic Christmas sale. Shut up already! This dude needs a new act. Maybe Beetlejuice could put snakes and lizards in his pockets or something. Then there is that former governor apparently turned snake oil salesman, peddling quack pills to the masses. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! It also reminds me of why I quit watching regular TV more than 20 years ago. If that guy who spoke of the vast wasteland back in the 1960s could see this. I didn't used to believe that television rots the brain, but it sure seems to have some brain draining  tendencies from what I've seen tonight. Confirmation baldness, and snake oil for  the pillow. Yep. That was one decision I actually made correctly way back when.  TV sucks. I think I'll have to fall asleep listening to Mozart to counteract  this effect. I sure don't wish to start staggering around like a zombie while  ranting about politics, pillows, and brains. Maybe I should add some Beethoven  just to be safe.

Ah, just because I can write it here where only you and I know, I feel like I'm going crazy. My heart is racing, and I'm having trouble breathing normally. I really miss my bed right now. I am awful, tired, and feeling just a bit claustrophobic in this room. I think I could brave three movies worth of road warrior traffic just to get to my home and my bed. I'm just plain tired. My nerves are frazzled. It's nobody's fault, and I'm not complaining out loud, but man, I want to go home. Damn these nerves. I honestly hate being wired together this way. And, there is nobody left who truly understands what it's like. I am doing my absolute best not to let it show. Then there's the matter of the other. And it seems to happen way too often for my sanity. And maybe she does not realize what she does or how she seems. But still, it's added stress upon an already stressful situation. So please allow me to vent here so as not to vent elsewhere. When there is no way to win, I  refuse to play the game. I will not hang around to be humiliated or belittled.  Trust me, I've got better places to be. No way. Jose. I'm not gonna do it. I am  just too old, tired, stressed, and overwhelmed. You are not her. You don't even try to understand. Such an effort would never even cross your mind. I am  someone for help or someone to blame, never anything else. My emotional state  might as well be inconsequential collateral damage from your point of view. You don't even see it, oh no. You just barrel down on that figurative steamroller to run down and crush just whatever is outside of yourself. And do you know something? I am tired of it. I am goddamn tired of it, and I have had enough. You are not her. You never were. She was the sun and the moon and the clouds, the trees and the ocean, and everything as close to earth as earth can be. You? You are some dark corner of the galaxy, a nebula, a stranger at best, dark  matter, untouchable, not even real. You don't see, you can't see for you don't  even try to see. You are a stranger! I don't know you, and you certainly don't  know me. You are distant. You are as far away as a soul can be. No, you are not  her, and you never were. You are not even a reasonable facsimile. You are not her. You are not her. You are not her. She is the one I need to talk to. She would understand, she always did. We fought the same demons together. It has been  a long war. I wish she were still fighting by my side. And while I guess I'm not all that important, what affects me still affects me. If it is in my mind, it is my whole world. I try not to let it show, but it is so damn hard to hide. I can't expect anybody to understand. Not anymore. I really am alone, you know. This is not a delusion brought on my anxiety. No, my friends, this is reality. I have been left alone in every conceivable way except for the one way I wish to be left alone. I am bombarded constantly in that one aspect. I am so tired of faking normally. I swear they want me there for everyone else, but damn if anyone is there for me. I have stood my ground and acted as stoic as I could, all while fighting this overpowering urge to run away, screaming my head off. I have often wondered all though my years whether I was built for all of this. I most certainly never asked for this. And I am even more certainly sick and tired of all this. I don't want it. I never really did. Faking normality takes too much energy, and I'm beginning to wonder the point. This role might fit the character, but it's a damn bad fit for the actor. Just for once, could I just be as myself? At least I'm functional. Yep, I remain a gear in the machinery of society. Hooray for me? I guess I will remain so long as I keep the ship together like Scotty. I say this even as the bridge rattles, and sparks fly from the consoles. Still, the sheilds are holding. I grow weary from the effort, though. I honestly feel I was placed in a mold that was made for someone else. If we are lucky enough, we find others with similar inner workings and encounter a level of understanding beyond words, and well, that's wonderful, beautiful. The opposite number is that similar mind no longer being around. Because there are moments like this one when I really need to talk to her. See, it's nobody's fault, but not everybody knows what it's like to live in this mind. And nothing makes you feel more isolated, disconnected, and alone. Nothing. Treasure those who understand you. They are rare gold, and they're unfortunately not forever.

Well, I made it home safe and passed out around noon on Sunday. I guess I slept from 12 pm all the way to about 4 am. I still feel I could pass out for at least that long again. Being up all Saturday night, fighting anxiety and staving off panic, zapped about all my reserves. Every time I come down from an anxiety episode, I'm exhausted. Add a missed nights sleep, and you got the equivalent to being knocked out by Mike Tyson. I didn't have to fear falling asleep behind the wheel because my anxiety had me wide awake and super alert. Who needs drugs when you're totally wired without them. Well, maybe you need downers, but you're not a druggie and don't want to become one, so you don't start by tempting fate. Right? Right. So I totally fell over like a redwood in a forest and slept and slept and slept until it was time to go to work. With these cut hours and this low pay, I absolutely can't afford to miss even an hour of work. It is something I absolutely have to do. There's nobody else looking out for me, so it's gotta be me to do all that needs to be done. Maybe I'll wind up in the nuthouse someday where there's three square meals, coloring, painting, basket weaving, not a thing in sight to be falling apart, and bills are something that only the normals worry about. I am Napoleon! I demand a room with a view! They say if you are able to ask if you're going crazy, then you're probably not. I'm not so sure. I feel as though I've been unraveling bit by bit these last several years. Maybe even longer. Looking back on my childhood, I can clearly see that I had anxiety even then, long before I knew what the word meant. A lot of this is genetic. I may have gotten my looks from my father, but my inner workings are a carbon copy of my mother's. I see her more and more within myself. And all this lay squarely at the feet of a man who passed down said genetics, then abandoned my mother when she was only three months old, along with my uncle and my grandmother. At least Momma and I never abandoned anyone. Nope. We stayed around to pass down our eccentricities to reinforce the genetics. Thanks, Momma. I'm sure my kids will thank me someday, too. It's not her fault. She was the best mother she could be. As I said, she never abandoned me. I think it took becoming a single father to three children of a deadbeat mom to truly understand and appreciate that fact. I had two good parents, my mother and my father. My kids only have me, mess that I am. My father is all I have left these days, and I hate to see him in such bad shape. I hope he gets his strength back soon. I don't want to even imagine what that's like. I want to keep him around for as long as I can. But as for myself in 25 years, I'd rather die all at once than a little each day. Let that be our little secret, dear reader. Just a quick heart attack and be done with it. None of this languishing in misery and needing help to get to the bathroom. Just kill me already, and don't torture me for years on end. As I have said, I have seen quite enough already, and I'd rather exit stage left with some dignity. Now, it is possible that my beliefs may change before my time, but somehow, I doubt it. See, I have had several decades to form them. And some of these lessons have been damn hard. Seeing my parents suffer is part of why I do not wish to go out that way. I know it hurts, whether sudden and unexpected, like what happened to Marsha or long known and long suffering like it was for my mother, and still is for my father. It just plain leads to nowhere good. It's one of those aspects that make life suck even more. Sometimes, there are no comforting words. All I can say is I know this is bullshit and cry with you. We'll cry together until we feel better. Such a thing wouldn't be built into us if we didn't need it once in a while. Sometimes, letting someone know you are here to be that shoulder they need is all you really can do. I am here for you. What beautiful words these are. I sometimes wish I heard them from somewhere, anywhere. If you have somebody like that, do your damnedest to keep them in your life. Show them love and, yes, be there for them as well. Why? Because someone like this is rare treasure, my friend. Treat them accordingly. 

Freefall Winter

Good morning, Universe 

How goeth the planets and stars, the protons, neutrons, random electrons and such? Tell me, universe: Are there any alternate quantum realities I should know about? As for this reality and I, I appear to be alive, and one gathers that to be a good thing. Despite the days being long, time can be relentless. I spend so much of it simply focusing on getting through the day. It is only when I look up now and again that the gears of the universe have jumped far further than I realized. The gears jump, otherwise spin rapidly, and I find myself here. As the song goes, time keeps on slipping. Welcome to the freakin future. I have the weirdest milestones to go by (besides my age, which is bad enough) to compare with just how much time has elapsed. Let's just call them a few anniversaries of random things. What things? I wrote a song about it, like to hear it go! Talk about singing the blues, huh? My oldest virtual computers are a decade old. My one surviving cassette radio mix tape that lasted long enough to be digitized? 33 years old last June. Ditto for my oldest computer files, mostly WordStar text and GWBASIC programs. Last September, my oldest visual novels turned nine years old. Last October, my IllusionSoft games were downloaded ten years ago. In December, I started archiving my favorite webpages again in 2014, nine years ago. (I also have some even older pages from 2007, 17 years ago) On December 10th, my favorite computer game (Doom) turns 30. And I have been playing that game for almost as long. Thanks to recording demos, I can even watch younger versions of myself playing through the levels. In January (a month that I hate with a passion) Of that terrible year, 2022, I lost Marsha and started this blog for writing about my grief and of losing her two years ago. In February, my oldest M-Disks will be nine years old, and my mother would have turned 75. In March, I will have lost her two years ago. In June, My Star 98 Totally 80s Weekend recordings will turn 18 years old. Time sure can be treacherous. Some of this stuff doesn't seem so long ago, yet here we are. Getting old is one sneaky bastard. My soul feels quite old. I sometimes feel I've run this same gauntlet several times before. Yes, my soul feels old, and so does my body. But my mind is as young as it ever was. The looking glass is a damn liar in more ways than one. I feel totally bored with all the rides in this figurative amusement park. Not only have the rides gotten old, but the people who actually made them worthwhile have been leaving one by one. Yet I'm still here. You can always count on me still being here. It seems to be a constant of the universe, at least for me, that I'm still in it. I guess if it wasn't, I wouldn't be able to observe that fact. Oblivia's realm is outside of space and time. I guess for me to be aware of this universe, I've got to be a part of it. But the rides are getting dull. Pleasant surprises have gotten fewer and farther between, and have long ago fallen by the way as far as I know. And this one roller-coaster I've been on hasn't exactly what I would call fun. There are many levels of tired, and sometimes I think I'm resonating on every harmonic. And if I go and on about this, I'm just going to make myself feel bad. Soooo. How about another clean cup move down subject change? Stuffed shirts: You know I hate 'em, right? I feel about the same way about stuffed shirts as Beetlejuice feels about sandworms. And maybe they all should go to Saturn. Know what I mean? I bet even Lyds would back me up, wouldn't ya, babes? They just walk around looking important, getting astronomically larger paychecks, but doing none of the actual real work. Okay, if you don't hate 'em, I'll loathe them enough for both of us. It's enough to make my head spin. AHHHH! Donchya just hate it when that happens? Greedy freaking cheapskate bastards who have absolutely nothing better to do than to make the working poor even poorer. Nope, I can't say I'm a fan. Dead weight snappers. One of them certainly fits the weight requirement. Imagine if Jabba The Hutt and the Kool-aid man had a baby together, and it's all grown up now. Yep. I guess I can be a bit mean, but I assure you they deserve it. That one in particular is more two-faced than Harvey Dent. And Harvey at least has class and doesn't go around kissing up to superiors while messing with the working folk. In fact, for someone called Two Face, Harv is a fairly straightforward  guy I could definitely have respect for, unlike Kool-aid The Hut over there. After all, respect is earned, not just given. Friends, there are people who make me happy just by walking into the room. Then there are others who piss me off merely by being in the same building. Grrrr. Well, I went from a subject that made me sad to a subject that grinds the old gears. Let's start over again, huh? Clean cup move down? Safe topic? Maybe the weather. Speaking of which, someone's been messing with the outdoor thermostat again. Damn, I didn't expect it to be that cold. Meanwhile, I pulled the "Just five more minutes" prank on myself again this morning. I woke up with exactly 3 minutes to get ready for work if I were going to make it on time. I made it with one minute to spare. I didn't even get all the frost off my windshield until I was mostly down the dirt road. Every time I say I won't take the five more minutes, gamble again, I still do. I've never been late to work because of it, but those laws of averages are waiting in the weeds, You know, mornings would be so much lovelier if they didn't happen so darned early. And again, who's been messing with the outdoor thermostat? You've got that set a bit low, pal. I'm Balz Von Frozemov all over again. I had been holding off on running the heat (but I said to heck with that) at least until the 5th. That's the day when the new billing period starts.The electric bill is ridiculous enough without heat or AC. Late December till mid-February, I'll have no choice. Until then, I want to save whatever money I can, but I'm not going to freeze my butt off over a few dollars. Still, these cut hours and the cost of starting health insurance make it necessary for me to cut a few corners where I can. I try not to think of it too much, as it is one hell of a kickstart to anxiety and depression. Seriously, folks, I'm doing okay today. And while okay is not exactly breaking into a happy song, it is still good enough for me. In this life, you've just got to take what you can get. Wishing for anything beyond that will just make you sad. Keeping in mind that we still stumble across good fortune once in a while is about the only consolation I can think of. I know it's not much, but it's something to hold onto. I hate to be a Grinch, but I'll sure be glad when this whole Christmas season is over. I can be reasonably content, but I can't exactly be jolly these days. Then again, after this will be dreaded January, and I already seriously disliked that month with its gloomy overcast coldness, even before 2022, when it also became the month I lost my baby sister. After that, I grew to more than dislike it. I grew to hate it. No offense to any January fans out there, but I call it Suckuary. It's gloomy, it's cold, it's foreboding, and it took Marsha from me. Sorry folks, but damn January to hell. I miss my sister, the words echoing throughout this void in my heart. I have spoken them a thousand times. I have meant them every waking minute of every day that has passed. And even after all this time, there is a bit of my soul that refuses to believe she is gone. I miss my sister, and these words seem so empty despite the overwhelming feeling behind them. Maybe it is because they can never bring her back, that they can never grant me just one more conversation, grant me just one more day, bring back the person I once was before I knew how much another human being's presence defined me. I am the stunt double without the actress, the wonder without the twin. When I grieve my sister, I also grieve the self that could never be without her definition. January sucks. The fact that it took her from me makes me hate it even more. As I said, damn January to hell. If I could ever have wrath for a calendar page, it is that goddamn month. Let's fast forward both December and January. At least February is my mother's birth-month. She would have turned 75 if she were still here. So let's just skip Christmas and Suckuary so I can celebrate my mother's birthday and laugh about Valentine's Day, that lovely romantic holiday founded on somebody losing their head. Ah, the Romans. You can't beat them when it comes to inspiration. I'm not lion, harr dee harr harr. If I were lion, I would say, "Why hello there. I'm that big lovable lion you've all heard about. Roar. Oh, do settle down, sweetie. I promise I won't bite. Why, I'd certainly have to get to know you better first. Anywho, what do you think of my jungle? Oh, I know, soooo much green. I've been trying to redecorate, but it's oh soooo difficult getting good help out this far."  However, I promise you I'm totally not lion. Anyway, back to my point, I do my best to distract myself away from the heaviest of those heavy thoughts. I just wish all my hobbies and distractions still held the appeal they used to. There were my computer games where I could step outside of myself for a while. There was my computer stuff where I could be Cyber Merlin, with all those mystical powers. I guess it could still be that way if time and technology didn't have this way of having moved forward into the 21st century. So much for my godlike powers anymore. I know absolutely Jack about smartphones. I don't care to, either. There is so much more freedom on the PC, especially the PC of old. Even the internet has become bland and uninspiring, not to mention geared more and more for these damn phones. I miss the old internet. Well, except for the slow speed. It used to be an infinite universe of possibilities, with amateurish but awesomely crafted pages made by people who were in it for just the fun of it. The only limit was picking something to search for. These days, I am kind of hemmed into only a few places to go. There's a couple of places where I get levels for my favorite old games, Doom, Duke, and Wolf. I have also recently discovered that even Lemmings has an online community, and oh, the love-hate relationship I have with that game! Then there is the cool stuff I get from Twitter and Deviant Art. And then there is that one particular social media site that is not so much fun anymore. How out of touch are these supposedly targeted ads? They're trying to sell diamonds to my broke butt. Quick tip: For someone as financially challenged as I am, they need to also include ski masks and burglary tools while they're at it. Kidding! But, I couldn't even afford costume jewelry. No bobbles, bangles, or treasure for me. Nothing on the high seas for me that ain't digital, me hearties. I can't even afaaaard me rum! At least I have pirate speak down. That's me only consolation, mateys. It is 90 percent companies trying to sell you their crap and people trying to sell you their religion. And that's pretty much it. They really need to invent "Church Book" where they can hallelujah and amen all the live long day with like-minded people. Of course, if they did, I'm sure they would copy-paste and keep posting. How they confuse online social gatherings for a goddamn tent revival is beyond me. Besides all that spamming by companies and zealots alike, besides the data farming, the politics, and the obvious manipulation, this whole social media thing is an emotional sinkhole that will drain your mental health if you spend too much time on it. It's not healthy at all. So, all I really have is my game levels, maybe a few visual novels, and a smattering of pictures from DA, Twitter, and Yadda Yoda. Even this has gotten a bit redundant in these past few years. Most of the games and the game levels I acquire have never actually been played by me. That's weird, right? I may pick one or two here and there to set up and play, but the rest just winds up in my digital collection, untouched. Heck, I have more Doom levels than I could play in a lifetime, and I am not exaggerating either. I have been collecting them since the turn of the century. Yet, Im still getting more. To say I have 100 gigabytes of Doom levels would be a pretty close guess. And when you figure that the average file size is a few megabytes or even less, well, that's a lot of real estate in Hell. I really should start charging the devil rent since he seems to not be interested in making me any deals. And all this, all this has gotten a bit old, a bit stale to the point of my wondering whether I am truly still doing this for fun, or if I'm simply trying to distract myself from this life and things I'd rather not think about. It is pointless to a point and with a point, if that makes any sense. It's like the point is something other than one might expect. Really, save for my banking and bill paying, I could probably turn off my internet and start delving through the stuff I already have. It's sad that it just isn't really fun anymore. It used to be my escape, but it's been leading nowhere of late. For someone as introverted as I am, it's a really big deal. I guess I could count the outlet of this blog, my semi- invisible presence on the internet outside of social media. But this is far more self therapy than fun. Faking sanity in real life requires a lot of text, you know. Now, here, my friends, Romans, robots, and strangers, you get my genuine eccentricity, which is a far more eloquent way of saying insanity. Like I always say, if I am indeed insane, then I have earned it. Live this life of mine for a few decades, and you, too, can be as nutty as a fruitcake. Hey, at least those things are good on longevity, right? Though I don't exactly know if that transfers to me. I have made it quite a few years, But I seriously doubt I make it as far as my Grandpa did, though I have several more decades to find out, less so if I don't make it, right? My Grandpa was a one of a kind. Here's a bit of trivia: My first lesson in classical literature came from my Grandpa, although I didn't know it at the time. See, Grandpa very rarely cursed. Still, there'd be times when he'd hit his thumb with the hammer, or maybe a bolt would break, or something else like that, and he'd yell, "Dang it! The Devil and Tom Walker!" And it wasn't until high school that I learned it was the title of a short story by Washington Irving. And, speak of the devil, how about an impossible hypothetical scenario: A supernatural being appears. Poof! And this devil, angel, demon, genie, or whatever offers me immortality, no strings attached, what would my answer be? NO! It has taken me only a few decades to realize I don't want to live forever. That goes double if it would be an eternity living my current life. No way, Jose. At least on the eternal life bit. Now if they want to make me rich, or send me back about 30 years with my current knowledge, or make the looking glass match the soul, or make a certain beautiful woman fall hopelessly in love with me, then well, hey I'm game. I am superbowl sunday, baby. Make it happen. I bet I could do a lot better than Tom Walker ever dreamed of. But, since I don't really believe in anything like that, I guess I won't be going down to the crossroads anytime soon. I do think my hypothetical answers do go far in defining certain aspects of myself. And since this is partly an effort to understand myself better, I'll call it a worthy exercise. This is my mostly unfiltered self here. Mostly. There are still a couple things I wish I could disclose and talk about in depth, but I have not yet found the courage to come out and outright speak of. Let's just say I have one more impossible wish and leave it at that. At least for now. Until then, there is always my offline text. There, I do not mince words at all. It is roughly a three tiered system. I reveal more here than I do on social media and in real life, but not as much as I do in my personal text files. That may change in the future if I ever get the nerve. Meanwhile, you get a lot more of the real me here than you'd get anywhere else. There's a lot of me here. There really is. In almost two years, I have poured out a lot of my soul. Honestly, at this point, I can't really remember what I have and haven't said. Nearly two years and almost a megabyte of ASCII text would be a lot to sift through. Yes, there is a lot of me here, Perhaps more of myself than is even in my head. I have spent this time and text sorting through my feelings, and  they're darned complicated, man. This has been a firsthand account of working through grief and loss, of dealing with anxiety, depression, and a whole laundry list of things going on in my head. It has also been about dealing with stress both at work and at home. It has been about this crazy pendulum swing with being perfectly fine with my perpetual singledom or going crazy with loneliness. This has been about the struggle to know and be myself, all while fitting the mold that living in bible belt USA constrains and confines me to. This has been about my effort to keep above the waves of my darker thoughts. This has been about far more than I could ever name. It may be one hell of a jumbled mess of words, but a good bit of my soul is here. And I feel there is so much more that needs to be shared, so much more that needs to be said. Heart and soul, man, heart, and soul. Maybe nobody will ever see these words. If so, they still will have served the purpose for which I have written them. Far better for this heart of mine would be for them to find a kindred spirit, a decade, a century, or even a millennium from now. Now that my friends is yet another one of my many daydreams. Either way, I doubt if I will know if it ever happens. If not, I would hope that these letters find their way to you, Sis, one with the universe, of the universe, and to the universe. These have always been my letters to you. I miss our talks. I miss there being someone who understands. When it all gets down to the universal truth, I miss you. And with that, I'll again quote Gump by saying that's all I've got to say about that. Equally along those lines, I'm pretty tired. I think I'll go home now.