March 12, 2025

These Things Four to Save My “Soul”

Last night… I did something unexpected and hopeful. I made a list of goals for myself. They’re temporary but they are 4 things that I wanted to do to give my life purpose. Which, as of late, has had none. When I look around at the world, burning around me, I find it increasingly difficult to make long-term plans. Whose to say that I will even bring them to fruition. I say that without a trace of irony and nothing but fearful sincerity.

My hope is that this list will give me something to focus on, other than the chaos. Which I have discovered is all-consuming. I had an intent to not look at social media while I was at work, however after having scrolled for a good 30 mins it occurred to me that I had already failed. This realization came entirely too late because I was already locked in the clutches of “panic.”

Yesterday I likened my obsessive scrolling to being trapped on a highway congested from a brutal, fatal car crash. You can’t look away as you slowly creep by, but you just have to know.

A secondary wish for this list is that it will cease the descent into cruelty. I find myself becoming increasingly apathetic to the pain of other people. In fact, I relish it. That makes me no better than those causing the harm. I don’t want to be that person. It is absolutely not who I am. However it’s difficult to not feel that way. They hurt me by putting him there, so I want them to hurt too. Most of what is happening is harming the people who allowed this to happen at all. They used their vote to spit in the face of “pussy liberal cucks” as some protest vote. Or as my mother loved to say, “cut off their nose to spite their face.”

I hesitate to admit it but I find, what most of the internet is referring to FAFO (fuck around and find out), joyous. Elated even. It brings me immense joy that I should not feel towards my fellow countrymen. Ultimately I am responding similarly to how they took the opportunity to vote this asshole into office, to spite their “enemies.”

What these people fail to realize is that we’re all in this boat together. So drilling holes in it to hurt the ones you don’t like will absolutely end up hurting you. Yet, I have heard that the reason they drilled the holes in the first place is because they felt betrayed to begin with. Which basically circles back to the one irrefutable truth: we have failed to listen and understand. We have failed at having basic human empathy.

Or maybe I am just too much of a “Pollyanna.”

To avoid the destruction of my soul, I will focus on these things:

  1. Finish my professional education.
  2. Learn to speak Spanish.
  3. Become more competitive in Lorcana TCG.
  4. Lose weight.

These are genuinely silly ambitions. Yet I see them as ways to soothe the roiling magma within me. With any luck, these will lead me to a place for myself in whatever unpredictable future lies ahead of all of us.

March 4, 2025

Why Hope?

Yesterday was a mental health lesson where I learned to lie when I’m asked “have you thought about killing yourself, yes or no?” It’s such a broad question. Of course, who hasn’t had those kinds of thoughts? To not narrow it by putting a time frame or allowing for context… I guess I’m just the guy who thinks about dying a lot. Which is probably not a good thing.

The nurse I was “rushed” to ended up calling me four separate times. Evidently I was a “red alert” for the folks at Kaiser. I was immediately given an appointment with the psychiatrist and my therapist, who has been off on “medical leave” since September. The same medical leave that just so happened to coincide with the strike. Funny how that worked for him…

Genuinely I feel that their overreaction was unnecessary. While I have suicidal thoughts I am someone who is more bound by “duty” than anything. Yes, I may feel that I’d be better off dead, however the fact that so many rely on me is what keeps me pushing forward. Plus, I have yet to put my will together. I don’t want my possessions to go to my half-niece who knows nothing of me and would just end up throwing everything away without doing the research of what she could sell for some level of profit.

The one thing I don’t quite understand is, why are we pretending that Kaiser even cares if I live or die?

This past weekend the BF and I went to visit a mutual friend of ours up at his home in Carmel. It was a fun little trip that was relatively relaxing despite it being such a short visit. The trip did open up my mind to the realization that I am thoroughly depressed. Not in the active “I’m sad” but deep in my soul. This was unapparent until the point our friend point blank asked me “What do you want to do for your milestone birthday?”

I had zero answer. My initial response was “nothing.” There was nowhere I wanted to go or anything I felt inclined to do. I rather it just pass by without any recognition. Which this is a complete 180 from what I used to do, which was make it a birthday month. My husband even joked, calling it exactly that.

Now I would rather just not have it exist at all. Maybe it’s age but also, I don’t see the point in celebrating.

It occurred to me that I have no hopeful wishes to travel anywhere because I feel that the world is fucked. So why break my heart further by holding onto the fantasy that I could travel to Disneyland Paris? Not saying that is anything I want to do, it was just the most likely of hopes for me to have. Instead of hope, I have survival on my mind. Planning and preparing for the inevitable outlaw of gay people…

Sorry… this is getting entirely too depressing. This is where I will leave you.

February 25, 2025

The Soundtrack of My Life – 45 – Fade Into You

If there ever was a song that encapsulated an explicit emotion, it is “Fade Into You.” For me it’s this listless yearning for another moment long ago, while ignoring the impending “end.” The lyrics for me are immaterial. I have resigned myself to the fact that while they tell a story of something else entirely, the song itself is a “mood” (as the kids say.) Listening to it brings memories rushing to mind and they play out like a highlight reel within the movie trailer of my life. The moments are surreal and short, comprised primarily of instances where there is just “peace.”

I started leaning into the song when I was waiting for Charlie’s end. While the tune was soothing it would press tiny cracks into my heart while it played. Inevitably it would make me sob because, like I said, the music is living in the moment right before it and everything around it is over. I would relive all of the minuscule moments between him and I, wanting nothing more than to return to them. Back when none of which I was living was even a remote possibility.

Today is one of those where I don’t want to be here. I don’t have any purpose in my life. The want that I had, being a writer, seems utterly ridiculous as the world I exist in hurtles toward fascism. I write about my queer life and gay shit. That’s not really welcomed in the Christo-fascist agenda. My very existence will be outlawed at some point. They’ve already begun the gears turning toward that inevitable conclusion. Gay marriage has been made illegal in Idaho with the express purpose of making it to the Supreme Court so they can reverse the prior ruling.

It was nice while we were a progressive society but here we are… Same shit, different day. Which is why I’d rather not endure this RIDICULOUS song and dance. Just kill me already. Jesus! Watching the world crumble around me is exhausting. Primarily because no matter what I do, it will do nothing. It will stop nothing. I am insignificant in the big scheme of things. Which, for the record, is an observation and not a complaint.

The one “good” thing my husband’s passing did was free me of the “fear of death.” It’s a dark thought, yes. However I welcome it with open arms. Only then can I be reunited with Charlie, wherever he may have gone. He will tell me how over dramatic I was and that I was using him as a prop to garner pity. Or he’d just say “dear…” and tilting his forehead down, look at me from beneath his bushy eyebrows.

Last night I concocted this story where a man becomes roommates with death. At first he’s scared of him, avoids him at all costs for fear that his new roomy might claim him at any moment. Predictably, as time marches on the two build an unbreakable comradery where when the main character least expects it, his life is taken away. But there would be no ill will between them. He would just look back at the times they had shared together.

I must reassure you that these are not thoughts alluding to a solo “attempt.” While I recognize that they are concerning to the normal mind, however it is me just accepting that which I cannot change. I merely exist here for the moment before I’m distracted by further doom.

Just know these two irrefutable facts: 1) I am conceited and would not deprive my presence to the few who know me and 2) I would not purely for the possibility that one day my mere gay presence may make someone’s day miserable.

February 18, 2025

Blue Tuesday

I am thoroughly depressed and I am trying to find a way to write it in the most eloquent way possible. The unfortunate fact is there is no one way to put my feelings when they’re this disjointed and unrelated. Well… related just individual thoughts that exist in a train with no connection.

My job is basically dead. For me at least. My boss hasn’t felt the need to offer me any assignments to “keep me afloat.” As a result, I’m overcome with panic attempting to decipher if he is attempting to get me to leave without firing me so I can’t claim unemployment. The position I am in, I’m technically an independent contractor. So he doesn’t need to do anything. Except take 60% of whatever I bill which as of right now is… nothing. It doesn’t hurt his pocket at all. He is still getting jobs. So… what does he care?

With the way the world is I’m wondering if I need to just fuck right off. If I have to start at ground zero with a new job why not get the fuck out of this goddamn dumpster fire and find something else abroad?

Immediately thinking that I am overcome with guilt of leaving my brother and family behind. He won’t go with me. He would stay here. And I could just say “that’s his choice” but… I’m not that kind of person. This is why I hate getting involved with anyone or anything. I rather be alone. I have the type of personality that I tend to make friends wherever I go. It’s genuinely uncanny.

I guess… since I have to start over after the death of my husband that also includes employment. Awesome. I didn’t know that this was genuinely a restart, on difficult mode no less.

I don’t know what to do. I wish more than anything I could talk to my husband for 10 minutes to ask his advice. I am so terribly lost and lack any purpose. And the state of the world has suck out the dregs of whatever ambition I had left.