this is where i’m at right now

Sitting at work, sleepy, unmotivated, and feeling the 60 pounds I've gained since my Dad died. This does not feel ideal.

I am struggling to commit to anything that isn't immediately rewarding and I am hating myself for it. Adulthood isn't easy, neither is grief, neither are relationships, nor is faith nor health.

Life ain't easy, it seems.

I've never really seen life the way I do right now, never been so confused, felt so trapped and limitless at the same time.

It's a trip, man.

From 2018-2019 I had seen 3 different therapists, one who laughed at me in session, one who didn't seem to listen, and one that I just found boring. I wanted a place to wax poetic about my pain, seemingly so I could go home feeling worse, which at the time seemed like getting better. I spent my college days (which admittedly are not far behind me) smoked out of my mind and intellectually stimulated the whole time. I miss the lack of responsibility and the self importance that I felt at the time was justified. My mind was all over the place and my body was lazy (for most of it), and I really thought I was gonna do something world changing.

In my sophomore year I thought one day that I had woken up in a different, hostile universe because my laptop password inexplicably changed. I still don't know why.

In my Junior year I spent 3 days in the hospital over a still unexplained inability to walk due to a pain in my hip. That year, my Dad got married and moved into a new home.

I remember spending 12 hours a day 4 days a week for 4 years alone on campus, with hours between classes that I spent alone. I would pray and beg God for someone to come and talk to me.

I'd go home, get high and go to bed. Party on the weekends with friends, spend all my money on food and weed and cedar point tickets.

I felt alone and worthless, intelligent and important. I reveled in my cynicism, loved each fucked up thought that I had, wrote them down, cherished them, hated them.

Near the end I started writing suicide notes.

I'd run the race, nonstop through a miserable high school experience (that I cannot look back on without bias and self loathing), a seemingly even more miserable college experience that included and a completely FUCKED 2019, fit with a brand-new benzo addiction, funerals, toxic sex, paranoid delusions, intern abuse, 100 pounds lost, and a half hearted suicide attempt that had me holding a boxcutter to my wrist for 45 minutes in the backroom at the hardware store I worked at before pitifully dropping it and getting back to work.

2019 ended with the whispers of a new respiratory virus that was spreading rapidly throughout China.

This led me to a 6 month recurring acid trip that began in March of 2020.

With my "third eye" now opened and an illicit poison irregularly fucking with my perception I came into a new relationship (that I am still thankfully happy in), internal and worldly exploration, Alan Watts, daily 30 minute meditation, journaling, amazing exercise, deep thoughts, great vacations, quarantine lockdown, and recent college graduation complete with a brand new professional job that I quickly came to resent.

2020 was a great year for me, and just when I thought I was out, life pulled me right the fuck back in.

Dad died on May 7th 2021, it'll be 6 months this week.

He went into the hospital with COVID in April and that was the last time I saw him awake.

The last conversation I remember having with my father was him asking why I wasn't calling him in the hospital.

7 months ago, he was alive, joking, laughing, working, cooking, and playing guitar and missed Easter dinner because he was under the weather. I went out of town to Petosky the week he went into the hospital. Two weeks later, I left work early in a panic after a phone call told me "I better get down there quick to say goodbye", a chaplain prayed over his body, I stared and felt angry with this man and his bank-rolled sympathies. He made it that day.

6 months ago, my Dad was put on a ventilator so "his lungs could rest", hours later he turned critical, I left work early again. I slept in my car in the hospital parking lot for days with the rest of my family waiting for news of recovery, addicted to any update on his O2 levels and the % of oxygen the ventilator was giving him.

One week into May, I watched my Dad die after being taken off a ventilator. A week after that I spoke at his funeral, looked through his google searches, spent time with my family, went back to work after a month off and spent a weekend in Miami with my love.

5 months ago, I got a huge promotion at work and a salary and started attending bible study and spent a great weekend in Tennessee with my family for my Brother's birthday.

4 months ago, I moved out of my parent's house and moved into a 1 bedroom with my dog spending 30 days alone with her inside only leaving for groceries, and did something on my birthday that I don't remember in this moment.

3 months ago, I drove and spent a weekend in Boston on my own, got shitfaced, got a tattoo, bought a 50 dollar poster, ate a dumpling as big as my fist.

2 months ago my girlfriend moved in, I spent a miserable weekend in New Hampshire taking care of a sick aunt and uncle, and my new job began, I drank every day.

Last month Norm Macdonald died, and my Dad's wife changed the locks on the house. That's about all I remember.

This week started November, it's getting cold and it snowed 2 days ago.

I am looking at myself and my world with fear. I'm having frequent nightmares, insecurities at work and in my relationships, my memories are spotty, and I am experiencing frequent dissociative panic episodes. I'm trying to stay sober and quit smoking. I just took a week off work because I couldn't get out of bed before 11:00. I'm overweight, my joints hurt, every day feels exactly the same, I get lost in my thoughts and time passes without me. I struggle

I feel sick, often lonely, weak, sad, angry, hateful, disgusting, selfish, lazy, manipulated,

bad.

Except for right now. Right now I'm at my desk, just finished a group session with some of my favorite students, I'm halfway through the workday, looking forward to taking my dog on a walk and a shit ton of dishes to clean at home, dinner to make, tomorrow's Friday, that's good.

day by day, man.