After Burn

I am now officially divorced. How is your day going?

I hate the ubiquity of “A Christmas Story”. If I ever enjoyed the movie it has long since been burned out by its mind-numbing overexposure. I greatly enjoy the film “Jerry Maguire” but don’t agree with the popular romantic sentiment of “You complete me” that has become synonymous with the film. I think I am a complete, flawed, and worthy person. But I do believe very much in the power of love, romantic love. There is another line from “Jerry Maguire” that I can identify with immensely - “I miss my wife.” Of course I won’t get a happy ending with hand holding and Bob Dylan’s “Shelter from the Storm” playing. I will be officially divorced at some point this coming Monday. Best case scenario is that she texts me after it is final. I’m not holding my breath for a phone call. Of course I might not hear anything from her at all based on how non-existent communication has been lately. There are only 36 days left in this horrendous year.

Two anxiety ridden nightmares Book-ending one wonderful sensual happy dream sandwiched in between. And when I woke up I quickly realized that neither of the circumstances in either nightmare is ever likely to happen in real life, but the happy dream is something that could possibly happen. But it won’t. And so now the happy dream becomes the am instrument of torment during the waking hours.

I never have as strong Déjà vu as when I really hate my life. And I am having very strong Déjà vu tonight. It doesn’t feel so much like I am an adult child living with my parents again because I am down on my luck trying to get back on my feet as it feels like I am being punished for something and am stuck being a third wheel in my parents’ shitty marriage while trying to come to accept and mourn and move on from my own recent failed marriage that wasn’t even 1/100th as dysfunctional as my parents’ is. The past six months have been tough and the next three or four will also be, but hopefully working this job with long and odd hours and gaining some financial independence will give me a base to work up from. I just need to get out of my head and stop trying to fix problems that will never be fixed, or get resolution to things that will never get resolved. And I most definitely need to stop thinking that things are just going to start getting better because they’ve been go bad for so...

I’m sure at some point during this election I thought to myself “It’ll be a cold day in Hell before Donald Trump gets elected President of the U.S.”. Well my day to day life for most of 2016 has been a waking Hell. And it was cold yesterday. 2003, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2011. Those were the most trying and painful and traumatic years of my adult life. I made it through them all. I don’t have a lot of faith right now that I will be able to say the same about 2016. I essentially quit drinking in August 2013. Only occasionally drinking in certain social situations and drinking very lightly even then. I have not had a sip of Bourbon since the Kentucky Derby in 2015 when my then fiance and myself made Juleps to watch the race. I have had plenty of reasons to drink since then but haven’t so far. Since that time I’ve had cousin I was very close to killed in a motorcycle crash. I’ve had my wife start (and soon to be complete) divorce proceedings. I’ve been out of work since the first week of ...

I don’t fault anyone trying to soften the blow but let’s not skip over the cold hard facts. America’s first non-White President is being followed by a man who spent 8 years crusading against that very same President based on a blatantly racist lie. A man who was endorsed by the KKK. That does not happen by accident. We have a President-elect who is a shallow, aggressively misogynistic, serial cheater & admitted abuser, that has openly lusted after his own daughter. We have a Vice President-elect that has gone beyond rhetoric and actually actively legislated his hatred of Women, Homosexuals, and Transgendered. I am a political junkie. During the Bush/Cheney years I never missed a speech or event. No matter how angry or frustrated or outraged I was at them about what happening in our country I remained engaged and alert. I just stopped the watching the election coverage because Trump took the stage. I can not do this for four years. I just can’t.

I have a tendency to get fatalistic. The way this year has been going for me it’s not surprising. And the hits just keep on coming. My laptop died on Friday after a few weeks of issues that I was trying my best to fix on my own. Tuesday is the earliest I can get it to a friend to run a professional diagnostic.  I hope there is at least a way to save most of what is on the hard drive, even if the machine is kaput. It’s just a cheap Acer laptop I picked up 6 years ago that was supposed to be just a short term in-betweener while I saved up to get another MacBook. I’ve gotten a lot of use out of it, but I can not afford to get anything new except another similarly cheap & simple PC laptop.  I’m also having a lot of trouble with my phone, but my free upgrade is coming in January so fingers crossed it can last until then.  My vehicle has had a barrage of minor issues that affect convenience & reliability for a while, but now in the last few weeks I’ve starte...