First of all, thanks for coming to this site. I put a decent amount of work into it, and I’m glad to see the metrics and the people popping in from time to time. I should apologize for the lag between entries, but we all have the rest of our lives to deal with.
The last few weeks have slowly been improving my mental state, one step at a time. I won’t say it hasn’t been tough, but adaptation is something all life goes through. Succeeding at these tests just means that more tests are coming, and it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.
With that in mind, I feel like now is a good time to start chasing after some more professional certifications. Studying is a great way to focus ourselves, and also helps to distract us from the natural struggles that occur with the cycles of time — in this case, the nasty winter that we’re going to spend the next 100 days or so slogging through. Chicago makes midwesterners out of us all. Hopefully, it won’t turn us all into zombies.
The alley outside is covered in a good 2-inch layer of ice in some places. Yesterday, while I was helping some passersby remove their Tacoma from a particularly frictionless patch, a friend of mine absolutely lost his footing and slammed into the deck like a pile of bricks. Thankfully he had a few beers in him and bounced back up like a happy drunk baby. But it scared the bejesus out of me.
Neil Gaiman says that our writing needs to reveal a little more of our inner lives than we are comfortable with, and I think this is a reasonable platform to be doing that on. So I’ll say it here: I’m terrified of death. Not so much my own, because what am I going to care? If there’s an afterlife, I’m sure I won’t spend it contemplating the life I was living beforehand. I’m more worried about the people I love disappearing into that inky space beyond life.
At times like these, I like to use metaphors and sayings to try and abstract away the fear. I used to tell myself that everything ends, both the bad things and the good ones. Sorrow and guilt and pain should fade in time. So do good things. But the flight of time feels like it’s taking more and more as I age. And that scares me something fierce.
Interesting things have happened in the past few years. I got married. I met new friends, which is rare enough when you’re a grown adult. I discovered new music and art that brings me some level of pleasure. My friends lost people. Some encountered other troubles. I don’t want to go into detail here because these are other peoples’ stories, but it should be said that I’m luckier than most.
2019 was a very hard year for a lot of people. I hope the nightmarish trials of the new year aren’t too scary for us. Because as survivors, we need to keep telling the tale.
Goodnight, and lots of love.