note to self..

Everyone has probably been where I feel I am many times before me. 4 plus years since mom passed away and I am still a mess. It's taken more of a toll on me than I saw coming both physically and mentally and the void her passing leaves in my life will never fill and I will likely be for the rest of my life, a broken man.

It doesn't help that the world is upside down and on fire and that my country is unrecognizable and the one I grew up in has died before my eyes. It would be depressing even without great personal loss health issues and so on. But watching the younger generations be the catalyst for a future they will regret is steadily weakening my care and concern.    

The things I once looked forward to just a few years ago making photos and videos, and looking for new work, are all a long-lost memory. My well is dry, and devoid of life.  

Always the loner never feeling comfortable around people persists and has increased a thousandfold since mom has gone. A reclusive solitude while it fights with my sense of well-being is my only comfortable place. There are people I feel love for, family even, that I would like to feel comfortable with, and yet it just isn't there.

My mental and physical health has suffered and a lack of peace in my soul is outpacing my will to address it. Things and people have changed since mom passed away I keep telling myself, only to realize the change is in me and it just hurts more.  

Maybe I'll pick up and move someplace my mind as it wanders, change my name create a new life make some new memories, those thoughts have crossed my mind then the newest lab results remind me there probably isn't enough time. I reluctantly asked a friend to help me put a house up for rent or sale and while she graciously agreed she baled and that was that.     

I know I have to do something here before the clock runs out even if it's wrong or doesn't make a whole lot of sense. God will surely lead me in some direction that is better than treading water in this place. 

I've upped my purging of things from Mom's house and mine for the past year or so and more lately in the hopes of spurring me on to make some type of progress as  I'm feeling a need to pick up the pace. 

It's 4am and I am sitting here writing instead of resting up to make use of another new day. Some random reading of Suzanne Summers' husband of 55 years who said some time ago of her passing and how peaceful and calming it had been. She had battled more health demons than any 100 of the rest of us and yet she managed to make use of every minute she had and stayed in a loving relationship till the very end. 

Suzanne's huge house and 100 million dollar fortune couldn't save her and isn't going to comfort those who are left behind when they need a hug or to hear her voice. The emptiness that is left behind when a matriarch passes away is something no one can relate to until it happens to them. How you deal with it defines the legacy that a loved one leaves behind and right now I don't feel I'm honoring my Mom's legacy by not being well myself and getting on with whatever life is left for me. I have a lot of work to do..

Link: Note to self..

       

a life lived

I felt compelled to write. 

There are no souls of importance left in my life to make what I see ahead anything but uncertain and unfamiliar. A successful life by any measure other than relationships with people will produce a flawed and inaccurate result. I learned this by measuring happiness by the number of jobs in a week, month, year, and bank balances. But those measures had cruel ironies attached and ones I had to go through and experience to realize. 

The older and wiser adage is a real thing where I've gained greater focus on all the mistakes I made over the years like valuing the wrong things while just being and experiencing life with others took a back seat or had no seat at all. I thought it would be much easier to eventually shift from that accumulating lifestyle to one more related to inner peace but I'm finding that not to be the case. Being one of the crowd was never a fit for me and I actually did suffer because of it, but the suffering then pales in comparison to the anguish now since reaching my fourth quarter of life.  

As a kid, all I ever wanted was to have money to buy stuff and now that I can afford whatever I want, I just want what I used to have, that dream.. I was already rich long before I had a dime in that I was experiencing love without condition from a mother who could have fallen from the weight of husbands and fathers of her kids who didn't support her or us. Not knowing how well off you are until later in life is one of the cruelest of all ironies. I've often wondered if those who graced my younger life and have now left this world, did they know at the time the value of their impact on our lives and did they die knowing how rich they made everyone around them just by living a good and decent life throughout all the hardships they had to endure?  

Whether real or imagined my soul today is heavily burdened with things you want less of like regret and sadness. Regret that I pushed aside some of those who are gone now and sadness that I wasted so much time focused on the less important things. Often in prayer, I ask God to forgive me for those things which I regret and although I know that he does, I am suffering unimaginable grief that while my loved ones were here, I didn't show them often enough how meaningful they were to me. 

I woke at about 9 this morning, did the morning routine, and sat down to watch the markets. For hours I watched and did nothing else till I fell asleep in the chair and woke up about 6:30 having never set foot outside. I doubt my grandmother, Gran, ever had a single day or minute in her life to waste like that.  That lady had too much to do, too many kids to care for, feed, sew clothes for, and work because her husband, my grandfather whom I never got to meet, died at an early age leaving them and her to fend for themselves.

The memories so long ago of the family getting together at Gran's and the telephone party line we kids played with and the spearmint lifesavers she would give us just one because the roll was another nickel she didn't have. Kenneth's odd laugh and Peggy's beautiful smile and big hair. The cousins are all playing outside and how uncomplicated and uneventful those times were before we all grew up and time stepped in and took it all away from us. Nothing could have prepared me for the loss of those times and nothing now can replace it (for me) or ease the sadness of not being able to talk about those times with some of those who were there and now passed away.. 

Faith is all that I have now to help get me through this final chapter. While it should be enough, all too often I worry it may not. I am using prayer to touch base with all those whom I miss who have passed before me and for all who remain and are in need. Often I have to remind myself to add my name to that list.

Guidance and a path well lit is what I seek these days and it seems so elusive. What will I do with what little time I have left I ask myself daily with no definitive answer. The days and nights are too quiet and my mind keeps moving back to that place in my life when I had everything I ever needed and didn't realize it-       

twenty twenty four

 I'm very close to making it through another year. There isn't a way to describe how I feel about having made it this far except to say the old music still fills my eyes with the same emotion that the memories of those times and the people in my life back then bring. How beautiful those days were and how oblivious I was to how quickly they would disappear. 

There is a very small portion of my current life that couldn't be more perfect while larger parts remain in shambles and a mystery never to be unraveled. One marriage failed would determine a path of solitude that would consume the rest of my days and many hours spent thinking if only I could exchange the successes I've had with the failures, how would that change my view of the world today..

There is no replay, no substituting directions taken that took me to a destination I am closing in on. The new year feels daunting and I anything but optimistic. My country is on the verge of slipping into a place we fought wars to prevent and turning it around gets more dire and unlikely every day. The will to stop those taking America to a hell we never thought possible would have already shown itself and a 150 million people or more would have engaged in the actions it is going to take to root out this evil from our midst in a final way. But I don't see it. 

I'm apprehensive about the upcoming year to say the least and I think there will be challenges and actions taken that will continue to shock the senses. The future is in the hands of the enemy within and we are losing ground and the time to stop it. Not a good way to start a new year dancing past the graveyard but what are we to do without the will to engage and stop it. 

I pray about it and I pray for those hurting and in need already before we go over the edge. I listen to the old music and remember the old times and those people who fought in wars at home and abroad so that the generations to come, the ones taking us to this hell, would not have to endure the future I see coming. My hope is that those who can least afford to suffer, find ways to endure without collapsing under the weight. 

Good luck in 2024. Stay close to God and speak to him often. Here's to those 150 million plus patriots who must be out there but so far unwilling to engage before it's too late. May you find the will to save us. Godspeed everyone. 

           

     

I'm not the only one.. Christmas 2023

 I can feel the weight of the season as I get older and those who have meant so much to me have passed. The quiet times have begun to take a toll and my health has taken a turn. Those things that make me smile the memories, now make me sad. Time is passing at an unsustainable pace and the silence that keeps me company is consuming my peace. 

There are others I am sure who are feeling the same and while many come together this time of year to share pieces of their lives, I choose to remain alone in a place where I can feel my pain without embarrassment or shame. 

So many things today aren't meant to be understood and I know not everything we want life to be is meant for us. But for certain I spent too many years feeling like I had more time with those I loved, more time to heal from emotional wounds and to become the man my mom wanted her son to be.. 

But time waits for no one and wasting even some of it like I have, feels like a sin. Now I pray alone for those who may still care for me and I for them although we remain apart. The peace I wish I had made with myself, now I pray for others to find before their time is over. 

Thank you Father for saving the wretch that I am and I ask your forgiveness for my falling short too many times. I ask that you lay your hands on those feeling like I do this time of year and may your presence bring peace where there is none. 

Amen.

 

   

a message for the outcasts and the hermits on Thanksgiving 2023

 Odd times for me during the months of November all the way thru January each year since an angel came down and took the hands of mom and led her into her rightful place in heaven four years ago. 

Those very few who actually know me know I don't take the internet seriously on almost any level 95% of the time but during these months when strangers tend to get sentimental and tell stories of those who meant so much to them but who are no longer here, I feel that, I get it..

My routine this time of year when faced with the gut wrenching emotions of others is to transfer them to my own circumstances and hunker down quietly and just be OK alone. I'm doing that now but with this one twist of posting something serious to me on a platform, the internet, that I generally despise.  The purpose is for anyone who might wonder or wander onto it after I'm gone and find it explains better who I actually was as opposed to the perceptions. (You know who you are...) 

My best memories of these times are of all the wonderful ladies of the family building the various plates and bowls of awesomeness we all scarfed up at Gran's massive round table at her house down the street. Soon after was the cold weather and Christmas where we'd do it all over again. In January was mom's birthday and I was a kid back then and had no idea at the time how one day the memories of those times would be all I had left.   

Mom is gone, Gran too. Peggy, Ken, Toots, all gone and Linda struggling with Alzheimer's and Bobby with his own memory loss and doing his best to take care of Linda and himself while also grieving the loss of what once was. Jason doesn't talk to me and I won't push it. I've retired more or less and the volume of work that I used to hide behind, it's gone.  

Grief from loss is an unwanted companion that never leaves your side. It hangs around uninvited ready to punch me in the throat while I'm just trying to keep the wheels up and near the centerline. The feral cats that make their home outside around here seem to have the right perspective on life which is really just staying alive another day and finding something to eat. Raw and uncomplicated and I like it that way too. 

My neighbor next door to mom's house asked me to take care of her inside cat while her family gets together in another state for Thanksgiving. Of course, I told her, trying not to reveal that for me, caring for another living being at times like this makes me feel more alive. It's a gift she has given to me, rather than a gift from me. She appreciates that the cat she loves is in good hands and I even think Peanut in his own way appreciates me being there a little bit too. Neither of them know it is me who benefits the most from this brief encounter with another living being. 

So life is tough at times and really tough the rest of the time but I still like being around and looking at the internet reading how others are making big dinner preps for a big family get together makes the memories of those times when that was my reality come flooding back but I'm so thankful for having those memories. I know I'm not actually alone today or any other day for that matter, and it is God that walks with me every step that I take and that has kept me OK and wanting to get back up tomorrow. So I hope others in my same situation feel they too are never completely alone and that all this stuff we go through has been put there for a reason even if we can't quite see it today. 

Just take another step I tell myself every day, and it ends up being sort of fun watching others making their own memories that I know, may one day be all they have left. Keep making those memories and take pictures.

I miss you mom and all the others too, but God is here with me and I'm OK.

Happy Thanksgiving 2023

          

Me and mom 2017. She didn't know what a selfie was and I didn't know in just 2 short years, she would be gone. Her special dish was fruit salad and that everyone loved it.

5am

 Didn't sleep well last night for whatever the reason. A burst of echoes of times gone by in my head and big get up and go plans surged through my mind. I'm going to get up here in a few and get my ass in gear and push things sitting around out of my view. I envision trips, many, to the Goodwill today but first, there is the morning conversations and feedback that for me is sitting here alone and writing. A quick check of my phone to see if maybe I missed a phone call or msg from people who are gone now literally and figuratively. None. So I'll have a quick start of the day conversation with my friend over a cup of morning coffee. But I don't like coffee and can't drink it, and there isn't a friend so this will have to do. 

It isn't lost on me how fast time is flying by and it weighs on me that there is much less of it ahead than there used to be when wasting some of it didn't bother me. Do I get rid of this and if not then why am I keeping it. Toss it, my head tells and in the same vicinity of thought there's the well, you never know you may have a need for it again one day. But those one days are gone now..Toss it man, get it out of your sight and stop thinking those one days are ever coming back. Go ahead just toss it. 

So many things I have gotten rid of and that idea that I might regret it just never happened. It's easier to do than to think about doing it and then the regret that never comes.. So today I will try to carry through with some of what kept me awake this morning and make an effort to feel good about it. 

I've sat here and fallen asleep twice while writing this..

      

the sounds of silence.

 As I get older there are but three things that occupy my mind almost daily.. One being my health, the other two seemingly related to one another are, living completely alone and how unnerving that tends to get at all hours of the day and night, and lastly the feeling that although unnerving and isolating, I don't relish the idea of having to live with or even around anyone.

After decades of reading and researching about people "like me," I am no closer to unraveling the source of this self induced alone "affliction." Reaching out from time to time to others and getting from no response at all to, a quick quip, only serves to reinforce the feel that this life amongst my silent thoughts and fears for me is how it's meant to be. 

Was I happier when I had passions and work and a relationship here and there; I ask myself this in my frequent moments of mental conversations and I can honestly say, "was I happier then, hmm, not that I can remember." Briefly when relationships were new and mutual, they would be "fun," and even "exciting,"  and what I expect most happy people's experiences are like, but in the end, when the end inevitably comes, was it worth it?? I'm not sure it was or to be honest, "no it wasn't.."     

Brief times of happiness only serve to remind me that long term these experiences weren't meant for me for some reason. So why is that, I ask myself, as another look at my history swirls around in my head. I never come up with the answer to why. 

So the fear of dying alone and not being discovered for a long period of time due to not having any long running communications with anyone outside my door is real and it occupies a lot of space in my head but again, why?? It won't matter in the end because of course I'll be dead. But it does matter to me for some reason if only that it would serve to solidify in people's mind that yes, this guy really was a loner and didn't have anyone who actually cared about him. 

I'm not thrilled at that being my odd legacy even after death and it's a bit embarrassing to be totally honest. How does one get to be six decades plus into a life and have no one who cares if I'm alive today or dead 6 months ago and no one knew? 

How many me's are there out there, am I the only one?? These thoughts clutter some of my days and nights and kick off some of my mornings as well. Where is everyone? Is there an email or a missed call checking to see if I'm alive? Well, no, not anymore. Did I cause this, or is this just my lot in life, does God want it this way for some reason I haven't figured out yet? 

No answer just the sounds of silence.. 

  

the weight

this was one of those nights where the weight of the quiet and the solitude became almost too much. My mind circled from one thing to another and became a storm of heavy stuff. The world problems, someone said something that didn't sit well and all of it beyond my control type things. The things I haven't accomplished and need to do and the things I have done that don't seem to mean as much anymore. The silence and the ticking of the clock, then the look of my mom's pretty face smiling in the photo on the table next to me jars my mind into realizing there isn't much left to worry about.  

Often it seems when I get into these moods it is the weight of my thoughts, my worries, the world outside my being that I cannot get out of the way of that brings me to this place I don't want to be. Too often I can't get out of my own way to lift the noise that keeps me unable to just be alive and find peace. 

Let it go my friend, I say over and over in my mind, just let it go and be. 

This is the only life I get and the lessons my experiences have taught me is that how I handle these things is how I know if any of those lessons stuck, or been cast aside in favor of a noisy world I couldn't care less about and that doesn't care a thing for me either. As I sat there I began to realized I'm not really alone and never have been. The things my mom tried to instill in me, they are there and they helped me drag my ass up and away from that funk. God, he's there too and always has been every time I began to feel like I was having to walk alone. 

I said a prayer for all who are suffering and those like me who feel a certain kind of way from time to time. For those who are sick and coping with heavy things in my own family and those I know and those I don't. For those who seem OK who might not be, I said that prayer for them too. 

So I sat down and wrote this out to remind myself that I will never have to walk this life down here alone. The weight gets heavy at times and I can feel too weak to carry it by myself but then I realize I don't carry any of this alone and never will.

God bless

March 19, 2023

"I don't actually know." That is the most familiar answer to the question I ask myself, why do I feel the need to write, as I rifle through the 100s of scattered thoughts racing through my head just after waking up. No answers just thoughts, no resolutions just questions, no peace just this. 

I've settled on reading some of the most random of things that passed before me on the internet screen like, Elvis's death (what??) and how Lisa Marie had sectioned off the 2nd floor of his mansion where he passed away. How odd that she kept his bedroom exactly as it was the day he died and how quickly my mind goes to how I've done the same exact thing and kept mom's house in the same day-of condition. Then the why's, what purpose is there in doing that, should I be doing that, should I stop making a shrine out of things that don't bring me any closer to peace? Maybe it's time to let go.. 

My morning ritual these days is to feed the feral cats and set out water and hope to see them feeling safe and getting what they need if even for a little while. I'll go through junk emails and get rid of the sales pitches and people wanting to buy a house from me, "Great news, We want to buy your home!" Bullshit..

None of the things I end up doing with my days have much if anything to do with real people actually in my life because of course, there are no people in my life. Then the conversations with myself like, "so whose fault is that," come into my mind and once again, no comfy answers just, yeah probably my own doing.. 

An old friend comes to mind (and how random that is), one I had in Jr High School, Tom Hague, God rest his soul. As I do from time to time I try to look up people I once knew long ago to see if I can find what happened to them, where they ended up, are they still alive? Sadly many aren't and Tom is one of those. When we made it through Jr High and the next year was High School, I was completely terrified of what was to come. It was so hard for me to make friends and the thought of a new school was literally making me sick. Tom and I decided we would pick the same classes so we would at least have a friend in place but that was not to be the case.. 

It wasn't till after getting in that school that I found out that Tom had picked other classes and didn't tell me. I was devastated my only friend had sort of walked away. We rarely ever saw or even spoke again after that. The years of not being part of the cool kids and feeling rejected went into overdrive for me and the 2 years I could tolerate going to that school ended when I just couldn't take the isolation anymore and just quit. There was the occasional girlfriend and "friend," and a class or two I didn't mind, but the feeling I had going to school everyday was one of terror, loneliness, outcast, and a feeling of not having a place to belong. 

That story gets longer and there's no need to write it all down because there isn't a chance in hell even after all these years I could ever forget any of the rest and need a reminder. Speaking of which, after some 47 years of holding on to my divorce papers handed to me at the door of our house in 1976, I finally made the decision to shred them and never be able to read them again. All the details of that day the look on my wifes face, my boy playing in the living room unaware of what just happened, none of those things will ever leave my mind and yet these days I often have to look at the calendar to see what day it is and can't find my keys.. One of those memorable things was that night when my wife told me not to be too alarmed at some of the things written by the attorney in the divorce papers.. "Don't get upset at some of those things, the attorney told me we needed to put stuff like that in there to make a stronger case for me in the event you contested the divorce............" Wow. The wow I felt hearing that from her was confusing and then dwarfed by the actual words written in the papers which were completely devastating and even after all these years they cause me pain. I had been holding on to those papers for over 40 years and today I just had to get rid of them. But those words written there, they are words I can never forget and truth be told, those words, some of which were not true, have helped to make me not like the man I was then or even now. Yes, words can do that.   

One day a couple weeks ago I was looking for some other papers and ran across that 47 year old paperwork in a closet. It was then and there after re-reading that nasty recollection of so long ago, that I decided to let go of those papers and I took them one paper at a time and shredded them so I would never run across them again in this life. Unable to forget the words at least now no one else will ever find them and wonder if they were written for legal purposes or a real account of things between two kids who fell in love and didn't know what we were doing and failed with one blaming the other.  

It's awful quiet around my life these days and the random thoughts like these have a tendency to take up a lot of room in my mind. I wish I could kick them out and replace them with happier things but this is what it is. 

Maybe now that I've purged some of this through my fingers I'll turn on some old music and get to purging some real remnants of this life into boxes and get them to Goodwill so I can get back to remodeling this one house and perhaps rent or sell it. Keeping my mind busy is what I need to do more of these days so we'll see if I can do that. 

I wish for everyone peace. Even me..

        

I notice everything

How old would you think you are if you didn't know how old you are? 

Old movies, old people, old cars, and old stories. Old souls tend to think a lot, about everything. Constantly overthinking how things became the way they are and how we got here. Introverted, aloof, contemplative, a loner, just some of the many labels affixed to old souls by those who are not.    

The ease with which old souls see through the lies and deceptions of our society is because there is no filter being used to feel the need to fit in. In quiet times I often search for something within myself to tell of a story of why I am here in this place and this time and what purpose has anything I have ever done ever been. 

The smallest of things, the simple beauty others miss like wind in the trees, the changes in seasons when the leaves change, and then fall to the ground to be swept away and gone forever. My old soul spends a great deal of time contemplating my life and reflecting on those tough strong people and times that have left me here in a place I don't recognize to fend for myself. I find it hard to imagine ever being here without them and experiencing any real peace.

I can sit comfortably and talk with older folks but become withdrawn and estranged with others. An old soul's internal energy level matches well with older people who find pleasure in simplicity itself like sitting around a fire and actually listening and exchanging stories. We just feel old inside and it feels so natural and comforting to be with anyone whose soul is familiar. We are outsiders looking in and feeling like we don't belong in this time. There is a longing and a thirst to return back home that money, power, and nor success can take us. 

We are lone wolfs and not interested in the things or pursuits others our own age are looking for and that sense of alienation finds us with a lot of alone time where we struggle to find deep connections with people we come in contact with who don't have the same interests or values as we. 

We are spiritually inclined and tend to gravitate towards knowledge, wisdom and truth because they are the keys to power, happiness, and freedom respectively. This gets deep but we think a lot about everything and are plagued with reminders of our own mortality and those around us and therefor find social anxiety at every turn an uncomfortable and debilitating experience. Social situations are complex and tiring because there are so many elements to consider with people today, egos, insecurities, boundaries, and so on that we often just prefer to be left by ourselves. 

But when we find do find someone we connect with we often form intensely strong bonds because it's one of life's greatest joys to find a kindred spirit. We crave simplicity and are attracted to all things vintage. This is me and who I am and have always been since I'm a kid. I don't know why and don't spend time questioning it. 

The answer to the question I posed in the beginning of this introspection is, 150 to 200 years old. That is how old I feel inside. Old furniture, horse carriages, old cultures, 18th century photos, architecture and people, the by-gone eras are where I would feel most at home..

I notice everything. And by everything, I literally mean everything. I notice when someone stops hitting me up like they used to. I notice when the way someone talks to me starts changing. I notice the little things that people do, and the little things they no longer do. I notice when things change, and when it's no longer the same. I notice every single little detail. I just don't always say anything.