Time And The Void Between

Hello, Universe.

I miss you as always. I speak of you in the same breath that I speak of the stars. As of now, Alpha Centauri still shines in your name. Sadly it won't for much longer. It's a little over a month from now, 4 years, 4 long years. I think it's actually about 4 and a half for the star, though. But... It's inevitable, isn't it? Time is relentless, be it here on Earth or out in the vastness. It won't wink out. It will still be there as always. But its light will no longer be special to me, for it will no longer speak of a time when you were still here. All of the other stars will still shine in your name. And some shall still even long after I am gone. Divide spacetime in certain ways, and you are still alive. I wish there were ways I could be within those 4 dimensional coordinates where it is still possible. Yet, I am still here, beyond everything. Despite this, I still speak to you because to keep silent would be to agree with a reality that I just can not accept. I miss you, Sis. I always will. Okay. Clean cup move down. Allow me to gather myself a bit. Best I can tell, life has two phases: When you're younger than you think, and when you're older than you realize. I think I just might be in Phase 2. I am trying to remember the last time I was "with it", hip, or "in the loop". I keep getting a 404, file not found in this old brain of mine. 404, baby, 404. Was I ever? All I know now is that even my best pop culture references result in confused looks. I was a nerd long before nerds were cool. I knew then and I know now a lot of useless "fun facts". Yeah.... Maybe I have always been in a loop of my own, on a frequency of my own, out of band, out of my mind and out of my time. I still call now "the future". Why? Because there are too few present. Of all the people in the world, I happen to be...... me. Cling to the truths you hold dear. Stay close to the people who love you. When they're gone, they're gone. Friendship is a wonderful thing if it happens to be defined correctly. True friends live in your heart and not in a list on an ancient server trying to glean that last bit of metadata outta you before it sparks and shuts down for the final time before heading to that glorious e-waste cloud in the sky. True friends remember each other even when there is still life to live and struggles to face. Otherwise we're merely cordial acquaintances. Not a bad thing mind you, yet missing what's beautiful and wonderful about truly having someone in your thoughts, best wishes, and in your heart. True friends or friendly passersby: That's the difference. Better than hostile strangers, but not exactly friends. It's a pretty yet superficial world where everybody likes you, yet nobody loves you, an empty hollowness at the edge of perception. In surfer speak, totally not gnarly at all, dudes. If we truly are friends, we ourselves should matter more than strangers (to each other). Unless of course we have become strangers ourselves(to one another). In which case I suppose we are par with said course. And it's a sad course, indeed. Welcome to a haunted house of sorts where all my attempts to connect eventually become a part of my story. It's a true story. It's not based on anything, for this is indeed everything. What I delete elsewhere lives here along with what I kept. There, they get censored rough drafts. Here, you get the full picture. There, they get an outline. Here you get the complete reflections of a human soul... The good, the bad, and the horrendous, not to mention the emotional and the embarrassing. Welcome to the dream. Welcome to the nightmare. Here it is all the same. Here, you get the complete picture. Here, you get me.... And a bit more. I suppose social media can freeze up, hourglass, and delay all it wants to. It's a reminder of just how much better off I'd be without it. It only makes me feel unwanted and just plain invisible. A happy, healthy, well-balanced human being does not make for a good customer for these guys. In order for their scam to work, you have to be lonely, longing, searching for some kind of validation that just isn't there. This I know well on an intellectual level. Not so much emotionally, though. It's lonely in here. Comparison is the expressway to hell. And I sure don't need that, ladies and gentlemen. Not at all. I've really got to unhook that nonsense from my brain. They have a nasty tactic of using this built-in need for connection, this need to feel seen. Happy people don't need an illusion. Intelligent people know there's nothing there. But hearts have a way of overshadowing the brain. They have a way of making us not so smart. Especially we of the hopelessly romantic and forever alone who don't exactly do a Stephen Hawking style math equation before deciding, "Hey, I really like this person." And the deepening quickening of "I think I just might love this person." I'm not a smart space cadet because I know what love is. Ah, speaking of.... Beyond the internet and very much in the real world, an angel is looking absolutely amazing today, just like a dream, that sweetest dream... Of course, that's most every day. Still, it seems today is special.... Maybe it's the way the light is falling, highlighting, silhouetting, bringing into focus that visual poetry, this living, breathing song. How I wish I could harmonize. How I wish I could sing along. Ah, but here I am, beyond the scope and possibility of so many things, damned to sing the blues instead, broken lyrics of whispered "I love you's" straight from the heart, but never meant to be heard. Should I be happy instead? Should I be relieved to be excluded from the game? I wonder. On one hand, I can go about my business in my own little way without need of concerning myself with certain things (or a certain one). In many ways, I am totally free. Of course, the value of freedom can vary greatly depending on what it's from. And I'll just go ahead and say it: There are certain ways I'd rather not be free at all. It sounds insane. Maybe I have indeed gone over that edge. But there are times when I'd rather be bound to something, anchored, rather than cut loose and cast adrift. There is something nice about being on solid ground, my friends. It kind of feels like home. It sure does get lonely out here on the perimeter. Could it be that even the greatest explorers regret leaving home? I'm not a great explorer. I would furthermore like to believe I never left home at all. But even when we never take that first step on this long journey, time gives us the boot and off we go. Welcome to your destiny. Still, I'm tired, Universe. I'm awful tired. Home is so much more than a place, so much more than wood, brick, or stone. It is also a time. It is a person you love. It is safety and peace in the darkness. it is the ability to close your eyes and still know it's all going to be okay. This might sound sappy and sentimental as hell, but it's the damn truth. You can either play it cool or you can speak the truth. Me, I'll be cool in my own way, in my own time. Just not now. Just not here. And not like this. I guess there is a certain appeal in the impossible, a certain allure in the unreachable, a longing for what is so far away in space (and in time). What is it about what can be imagined, dreamed, even seen, yet never reached, never touched? And didn't some of us try anyway, to build a tower to reach the stars? Seeing is believing, but it's not having. It's not holding. Such is this great expanse of space and time that separates the stars as night divides the day, uncountable points of light, and an equally uncountable darkness in between. A lot of us are standing in a field under a clear night sky, yet without a means, without a star ship, earthbound. All of us can see the light, but few will know its warmth or its peace. Maybe the only thing you can do for the blues is sing them. It can be a long song. Yet, singing into the void can make a beautiful echo and a soulful sound. I know. It has been the venue and the song I have been singing. Not my song, for it's theirs, for them, always for them, broken hearts, lost angels, and wayward dreams. It's a love song to (back when's) and (might have been's) for angels and stars, and a lament for the distance between. It can lighten a heavy heart, can ease the pain, and maybe just maybe, I know why the birds still sing on a gloomy day. There is just nothing else to be done. A feeling can not change a mind or reverse the flow of time. It can't repair old wounds or bring back the dead. All you can do is sing. Time won't listen. Reality won't listen. Neither will harsh truths. But maybe the heart can. Love, even with nowhere to go, must be given voice. Well, the end of another year is fast approaching, and I, who have always been one for numbers, will continue my tradition of long ago's. It does my heart good that my favorite computer game, a game that will be 32 years old on the 10th, is still getting new levels every day. It is a happy diversion for me. It helps keep me from thinking too much about just what hurts and just where it hurts. I have been collecting Doom levels since the 1990s, way more than I will ever have the time to play, and I'm still getting more. It's just what I do. I guess with some things, it's truly about getting rather than having. Maybe somebody will find this treasure trove useful someday. I have an old home movie of a surprise party for my father's 53rd birthday. In 2026, I will turn that same age. It was a year ago last July that we lost him. In 2026, it will be two. The same year my father turned 53, my grandfather turned 95. He would have been 120 in 2026. There was also a party and a home movie for his birthday. There are a lot of people in that video who are long gone from this earth. My parents, my grandfather, great uncles and aunts..... And especially my baby sister. Then there was also the ex, technically still living but long dead to me. The few of us in that video that are still here have been greatly changed by 25 years. On the 23rd of January, Marsha will have been gone for four years. On the 25th of March, so will my mother have been gone four years. And July 21st will make it two years for my father. My oldest computer files (including my first writings) will be 36 years old. My oldest music files will be around 28 years old. My digital recordings of the totally 80s weekend on Tallahassee's Star 98 will be 20 years old in June. My oldest M-disks will be 11 years old, though the actual files on them are far older. My first visual novels were 11 years old last September, but were already a few years old when I discovered that format. Those Illusionsoft games turned 12 last October. It's the fourth Christmas without Marsha and Momma, the second without Dad. And it will have been seventeen New Years Eves ago that the ex discarded me like a used Pepsi can in the parking lot of the Chipley Foodmart. Seventeen years since I had to call my father to come get me on what was the absolute worst day of my life... That was until the day I lost Marsha. Heavy, heavy thoughts already. Clean cup move down! It was ten years ago that I started saving web pages in the format I do now. In a decade, I have collected about half a terabyte of pure internet awesomeness. I was saving pages long before then, but the format and naming system is what I came up with a decade ago. They're all related to my favorite games, movies, music, and more random subjects than I could ever name. My hobbies may seem weird to you but they make me happy. They chase the loneliness away. I guess what hurts the most is this feeling unseen and unheard, and that I'm fast running out of people who actually love me. It's not a good feeling. Sometimes, it's actually a good thing to be invisible. Guess it's a glass half full sort of thing. I mean, we can feel sad, lonely, or unnoticed. Or we can be happy we'll never have to take the blame for anything. When was the last time anyone blaming the invisible man was taken seriously? Never! Remember: A pat on the back isn't far from a kick in the butt. Random thought: There were ancient kings who could not separate the message from the messenger. Those poor messengers. May they rest in peace. The amoral moral of the story: If the news is bad, don't be the messenger. Take the day off and let your stunt double deliver that one. Alright Ms Claire Voyance, I may not know much, but I know far more about my own past, present, and future than you or the devil ever will. I straight up don't believe in that gobbledygook. I just happen to have a friend who does that I have on occasion allowed to borrow my phone, because I happen to be in that particular zone. And that particular angel can get away with far more than I'd allow with most. But now I am on the targeted gobbledygook ad list everywhere I go on the internet. (Gazes into crystal ball) I zee a lack of financial success in trying get me to paaaaay for a reading..." As Bill And Ted's Napoleon Bonaparte once said, " Pay? Buddy? Excusez-moi monsieur!!! or madam?" At the end of the day, even at the end of the world, beautiful words are still just words without beautiful souls following through. Also, if you can brave the cold, take a look outside. The sunrise is absolutely beautiful. Hello, there! I am totally not Obiwan Kenobi, but, "Hello, There!" Or maybe I'll quote Barbara Lewis, "Hello, stranger. It seems like a mighty long time." Love that song. She, too, had a voice that could sing all the birds down from the trees. (Though I feel the same about Judy Collins and Karen Carpenter) So... Hello there, strangers. Also Friends, Romans, and robots. How are all those bits and bytes treating you? It's cold but hooray for the sun! It's back! Yep. I'm definitely solar powered, baby. I don't know if they're particles or waves, but those photons sure go down smooth. It seems it's getting colder in this room in far more ways than just one. I want to skip the rest of December, please. Not that January and it's cursed 23rd will be any refuge at all. But at least all the fake jolly bullshit will be over. I always begin the season feeling mostly indifferent to it. But generally, I grow to hate it with every song I am forced to hear, every time I am hassled in any way. I know that if my kids were still little, I would be making some extra effort to make it magical for them, but that time is gone, just like so many of the people I love. Gone Why can't I be left in peace? Many Christmas songs I find tolerable. A very few l even find to be beautiful. Two, I absolutely love: The First Noel and Silent Night. You might take note that despite what I do or do not believe inside, that My favorite two are about the birth of Christ. Not about the freezing winter. Not about reindeer balls, not about false sentimentality, no lies about togetherness, jolliness, about just how damn wonderful everything is supposed to be. Just two songs about hope in a dry place, something beautiful that I can't make myself believe in. Yet it resonates in my old heart. No loudness. No bright lights. Just silence and peace. And there is one song that I absolutely hate. It provokes my ungodly wrath. This is absolutely NOT the most wonderful time of the year. It's cold. It's gloomy. Momma's not here. Dad's not here.... And Marsha's not here. There is no magic in this noise. There is no magic either in the empty silence that it leaves behind. Still... Shut the hell up. I am so damn sick of that particular lie. However let me also say that I get it. I truly understand. Nobody likes a Grinch or an Ebenezer Scrooge and all their negativity. Nobody wants to be around a buzz kill, a wet blanket. Nobody wants to get rained on by standing too close to anyone with a dark cloud following them around. Nobody wants to be around such a gloomy, negative person sucking all the joy from the room. So I try to put on an outward image that is not quite so dark... Yet... Here is where I speak truth, even when it's an ugly truth that I am not proud of it at all. I am far too lonely to be scaring people away. Please stay, please don't leave me. Still I need to speak the truth somewhere. I don't want to be negative. I don't want to be a liar. I am, however, forced to be one or the other. Which shall it be? Shall I fake it? Shall I put on a show, a persona with a smile that could never match these eyes? Shall I speak of comfort and joy, of other things I don't believe in? Or should I clearly explain why the whole holiday season, Thanksgiving, and especially Christmas just freaking blows? I can't be the only one here slowly going mad, can I? Momma would tell me that I must make the best of it. Dad would remind me that it's for the children. Though my little ones are no longer little. Maybe someday I'll be a grandpa. And I know Marsha wouldn't want me to be so down and depressed. These were people who loved me and wouldn't want me hurting, wouldn't want me to be bitter. They would not want this. Maybe that is what I should focus on. I should try, if for no other reason than for them. I wouldn't do this for anybody else. Not even myself. If this reveals my flaw, then it just does. I can't exactly pick the way I feel. I may can keep those irrational emotions out of the drivers seat, but I can't help how I feel. It's like the cold outside. It's just there. It just is. Clean cup move down. [Overheard in my thoughts] "Though I do not know the details of the accident, I am 99% confident in blaming those idiots in the land yacht." Carry on. "I'd like a thousand waters, Taco Bell." And make it snappy. No, Grok. I don't need you to explain her post. She's a beautiful gravure idol. She's pretty. The world needs to see. Nuff said. All these people and companies on that AI high will soon be experiencing the hangover. As always, there shall come a point when this insanity will end. Not all insanity will end, but this particular psychosis will be replaced with another one. Fads have come and gone long before even I was born. In fact, most of the awesome ones were from before I was born... The 60s were awesome, and I wasn't even there. So were the 50s. I never got to rock the Fonzie look. And that is just not (Ehhhhhhh!) okay. [Snaps fingers] Ehhhhhhh! Hey, where did those ladies go? I can't even do the soda machine trick! What a world, what a world! Friends, it's either laugh at myself or cry to myself. And I go back and forth on which to do. It's my special way of killing whatever time I may have left. I'm getting old, so it must be working. "Hello, students. Summer is over. So is the fun. (Actually, school's been out for Gen-X for about a decade or three) Still. Stand up and tell me what do you wanna do with your life?!" Of course, by now, maybe at this point in the game, we should change the tense to "Are doing" or maybe even "Have done. " It's the angry teacher at the school reunion, still upset over that textbook from 1988. I still think the TS logo was an improvement. And yes..... I still wanna rock. Only now, headbanging makes my neck hurt. Ouch. Damn it. Where did I put that ibuprofen?