I haven’t published anything for a very long time. I stopped writing because in looking back it all sounded the same. The same optimism, the same get through it, the same wondering back and forth.
I had a lot life happen since I last published. I lost my muse, my best friend in Hobbes my cat. He was the animal I most bonded with in my lifetime, and a kind soul that made me a better man. I lost my mother as well, and I am still trying to find my way through those emotions and the gigantic loss it brought with it. Because I not only lost her, but the bonds to the others in my family except my older brother. But he is going through his own emotions on it all and so I check in with him every now and then. I still have my wife and I am eternally grateful for everything she has done and still does to help me get through my days. But that’s the reason I am writing again so to speak, my days are getting more and more filled with end of life realizations and health that leaves me rolling the dice every day on if I am going to be able to breathe much longer or not. The COPD and lung issues play havoc with my systems and my stomach issues just exacerbate the breathing and vice versa.
My waking moments are fraught with memories of people I will not see again, and regrets that roughly rip me open to the reality of it all. You don’t get to say how it happens or when, and when these things start to play with your subconscious it’s very difficult to find ways through it all. I’m scared, I’m close to the end, and I am so damn alone with it all I start to lose it. My wife understands what I mean when I say alone, she can’t be the only piece in it all. That desire to communicate, to talk to, be talked at, and listened to, all of those things have disappeared. I don’t have someone I can call and get it all out, or bring any of this up to. That hole in my chest just sucks the rest of living life right out of me. I am soon going to lose my health insurance and with my daily meds I am afraid that health wise I am going to be rolling those dice more than once or twice daily.
There was good news in this all. I did find employment of sorts. I took a data analytics bootcamp in ’23 and was hired by the instructor to be a TA going forward. That’s where most of the last year went to, and I had a lot of fun learning and helping others in their journeys. I finally had more things to write about and a whole new way of thinking about it, but I was always scared to start again. I still want to complete something, but know it’s too late deep down. I am worried more about finding homes for the few things that mean something to me, but find that nobody wants them. Things don’t mean anything anymore because the people that would know them are gone. I am hoping someone will keep this blog up and someone else can find something they can use to help in their lives.
It’s a strange place to be in, and it hurts so very much to not be able to tell people how much I love them, how much I think about them, and what they meant to me in my life. I don’t know if there is anything after this life, I am hoping somehow there is, but I am going to miss all of this. I wish I could have explored, had a life full of living, but it looks like I will simply have a pile of regrets and unfulfilled wishes and dreams. I may not be going forward very much farther, but I will do it helping others if I can. I owe this world a bunch of apologies and hope that I can somehow find forgiveness, somehow find a peace. Sometimes it just hurts to hurt, and you need to get out the things that work against you. I still have my writing and my place here, when everything else is just sad.