Really, a blog? Who's going to want to read this? Oh well here goes...
2015 has been a real pisser. Seriously, this year can suck it. Anybody who is reading this should already know all about the events in my life that have transpired over the last 5 weeks or so, so I am not going to rehash them here. Needless to say, however, I've been left without an outlet for the endless stream of verbal and mental diarrhea that is my consciousness, so I figure I'll write it down and let others enjoy it (or at least experience it) since I'm not doing much else with it these days. Ok, so a little a little bit of rehashing is in order otherwise this isn't going to make much sense...
When you suddenly lose a partner, especially after nearly a decade (OK rehash over) you get asked a lot about your feelings and actions. People tend to say things like "you must be devastated", "How are you doing?" or "you're so brave" and say these things with the absolute best of intentions. They want you to know that they are there for you and are trying to empathize with you over the terrible thing that has happened. That is a wonderful thing and I really appreciate it, but it also feels intensely weird, at least to me. I'm a pretty introverted person by nature, which doesn't mean that I am asocial or don't like people, it just means that social interactions really wear me out sometimes. This is especially true when I am the direct focal point of the interaction. Offering your condolences puts me right at the center of things and that makes me want to crawl out of my skin a little. I think one of the great advantages to our often lame, social media obsessed world is the way Facebook and the like allow you to grieve safely and at your own pace. If I don't feel up to reading your heartfelt condolences today, I can wait and save it for tomorrow. When a relative stranger ambushes me on the sidewalk or in the lobby I can't say "Thank you, but can you wait until tomorrow? I've already had this conversation 6 times today and I need a break.". I also think there's an expectation in those interactions that you somehow ought to be feeling a particular way. I must be devastated? I mustn't be anything in particular actually. I can feel however I damn well please. I'm sad, lonely, confused, angry, happy, nostalgic, and yes sometimes devastated, but I feel all these things moment by moment often in various combinations that absolutely boggle the mind with their complexity and complete incongruousness. And bravery? Bravery is running into a burning building to save a baby, discussing your trauma openly in an effort to rid the world of sexual violence, or coming out as transgender to your religiously conservative family as a teenager. I am just exquisitely good at existing. I excel at rolling with it. This is not a choice I'm making, I just do it because there isn't really an option not to. Brave? Hardly. But I do appreciate the sentiment.
Honestly a lot of the time what I am these days is bored. When you carry on an almost non-stop conversation with someone for 10 years and then have it end suddenly with no resolution you find yourself at loose ends a lot. Who is going to be the sounding board for all this stuff in my head now? Whose sounding board am I supposed to be? Holy shit there are a lot of hours in the day. Were there this many hours in the day the last time I was single? I can fill up a lot of time tending to my pets. The hamster isn't going to change his own bedding after all, and Nacho isn't going to walk himself (except he will, usually on the coffee table or the entertainment center). It turns out I am also a champ at eating up time by taking 5 mile power walks while blasting Swedish progressive death metal in my headphones. Additionally, I have rediscovered a long dormant interest in video games. Did you know they've brought back King's Quest or that the computer still cheats in Madden football (or so it seems...). I'm always going to play music in some fashion or another even during the darkest of times. If the apocalypse happens while I am alive I will probably die with a guitar in hand, trying to find the right chord to play under the line "sky is burning" (probably something in a minor 7th). But even with all that there are still hours to fill. So when I am not spending my time finally getting around to reading that book about music by David Byrne I will be typing away here, to heal my heart, and maybe brighten your day. At the very least it will kill some time...
Thanks for reading,
Buh-bye until next time
