After Burn

Why do I break my own heart over and over again? With every dream of you. Every dream of us. Every dream of possibility. Has hope become a hindrance?

The question is never whether or not it will make a difference, but rather what kind of difference it will make.

13 months ago if you told me that Donald Trump was going to become President of the United States of America, I was going to get divorced by year's end, and the new Power Rangers movie would get decent reviews and be a hit; I wouldn't have believed any of it. With the Power Rangers thing being the least believable. And yet here I live in a world where all of that has happened so don't come to me for predictions because what the fuck do I know?!

If you aren't able to defeat the devastation does it just become normal over time?  Reaching a point where you can't even distinguish it from moments of peace. Everything blurs. Or is it just another lie piling on you like bricks, making it that much harder to break free?

I’m always soft for you, that’s the problem. You could come knocking on my door five years from now and I would open my arms wider and say ‘come here, it’s been too long, it felt like home with you. — Azra.T “My Heart is Full of Open Windows”

"I’m afraid of a lot of things, but mostly, most sincerely, I am afraid of being completely unraveled by you, and you finding nothing you want in here." — L.M. Dorsey, “She Is Made of Chalk"

"For years mental health professionals taught people that they could be psychologically healthy without social support, that ‘unless you love yourself, no one else will love you’ …The truth is, you cannot love yourself unless you have been loved and are loved. The capacity to love cannot be built in isolation." — Bruce D. Perry, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog

"One day, whether you are 14, 28 or 65, you will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in you that cannot die. However, the saddest, most awful truth you will ever come to find - is they are not always with whom we spend our lives." — Beau Taplin, Hunting Season "Did you ever know, dear, how much you took away with you when you left?" — C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed  "But I tried, didn’t I? Goddamnit, at least I did that." — Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest "I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying." — Nelson Mandela "When I wake up, I have to remember all over again that my dreams are not real and that reality is not a dream." — Cecelia Ahern, Thanks for the Memories

Facebook just had to remind me that four years yesterday was when my ex and I became “Facebook official” after having dated for a month. And today it is one year since she told me she wanted to divorce me, which came only two weeks after I quit my job in order to find a better long term career plan that worked for both us. I've had very little employment since then. I turn 35 in three weeks and all I have to my name is a few boxes of personal belongings & other assorted junk; a car that is unreliable and could very well just completely crap out on me for good in the near future; personal debts totaling around $6k; and no solid prospects for work or finding a living arrangement other than continuing to sleep in mother’s home office. The saddest admission I can make right now is that I’ve been going through all of this with next to no input or support from any of the so-called loved ones in my life, family or friends. They don’t even talk around the subject like they are just...

Every year I do two brackets for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. My “Head” bracket or the bracket in which I make picks based more on knowledge; and my “Heart” bracket in which I make picks determined on personal preferences. There is a lot of crossover in both brackets this year, but the Final Four & Champions are different. 

I ordered something for my mom’s birthday that is going to take about 2-3 weeks for delivery, but I got mixed up and used my own birthday as the timetable. And my birthday is a full two weeks earlier than my mother’s is. It’s a bicycle, so might be difficult to keep hidden. Oh well. Also, holy shit my birthday is coming up in three weeks and all I really want is to have found a job by then so 34 doesn’t go down the worst year ever, just barely supplanting my 21st year. Who am I kidding, 34 already has the crown. 

like a moth to flame fell so hard, lost the game know i’m not the only one to blame even good times will never be the same

Perhaps this is just my own perception and experience but I feel like the word “broken” has become very taboo in regards to it being used self-referentially. Especially in areas of mental health. To refer to yourself as broken is seen as an ill-fitting or overly dramatic, or needlessly harsh characterization what you might be going through. But how else would you describe it when that is how you feel? Is it because we have grown so accustomed to discarding things that are broken? Do we now see broken as an impasse? If we extrapolate our terms for describing physical ailments and apply them to mental illness then broken doesn’t seem so incorrect. I broke my femur when I was eight years-old. It was treated. And it healed. Colloquially I would refer to myself as heartbroken and that is understood, not necessarily questioned. Of course it’s not literal, as my actual heart is healthy to the best of my knowledge, but there is certainly much of my mental and emotional machination that is ...

Since my sleep schedule is fucked I decided I’d try to go see a late movie and catch  Logan  because I do very much want to see it and because I’m already sick of people asking me if I’ve seen it since it is well known fact that Wolverine is my favorite Marvel character from since I was about ten years old. I found a 10PM showing at one of the two theaters in my area that isn’t a crazy long drive away. Took a shower. Got dressed. Headed that way. Pulled into the parking lot.  Saw a couple walking out of the theater with their arms around each other.  Couldn’t stop the flood of memories associated with this theater (it was first place my ex-wife and I ever saw a movie together on only our third date). Started feeling nauseated and then went straight into having a full on anxiety attack. Never made it out of the car. Not a hysterical type anxiety attack, more of the freeze up on the outside but dying on the inside variety. Lasted about half an hour. Then I drove home. ...

rough day. two in-person job interviews. two rejections. spent the rest of the day hitting up places and dropping off resumes in person, applying at a few different places, even places that i know will hire a 15 year-old that has never worked over me. yeah i’m looking at Jack-in-the-Box, but whatever, really going nuts at my parents’ home, gotta get out of here, just need something to get my going, moving forward, treading water for too long, on march 3rd it was officially one year since i folded my small business and started this new path and job search, knew it was going to be tough, just didn’t expect i was going to be getting divorced and having to leave my home and newly formed family during the process, but that’s life, it sucks most of the time and eventually you die, but you gotta keep grinding because i don’t want to die in the station of life that i am in right now, that would be too fucking embarrassing, not saying i want to live to be a hundred and die with an empire, but i...

"I don’t think you ever really fall out of love with someone. I think when you fall in love, like true love, it’s love for life. All the rest is just experience and delusions."  -  J.A. Redmerski, The Edge of Never  I keep using the words & sentiments of others. Trying to find my own sometimes proves to be too difficult, but I've always been a quote archivist. Long before I even knew what that was.

"The night is starry, and she is not with me. That is all." - Pablo Neruda, Tonight I Can Write

"We are all a people in need. We are not perfect. We are not machines. We make mistakes. We need grace. We need compassion. We need help at times. We need other people. And that’s okay."  -  Jamie Tworkowski.

"You don’t need another human being to make your life complete, but let’s be honest. Having your wounds kissed by someone who doesn’t see them as disasters in your soul but cracks to put their love into is the most calming thing in this world." - Emrey Allen

I’ve been sort of binge re-watching Frasier the last few weeks. Not watching it daily. Maybe three days out of the week and then about four episodes max per day. I definitely watched it when it was originally airing, was something my family watched, but it wasn’t appointment viewing the way other NBC shows in the 90s were. I’m even just old enough to remember watching the last few seasons of Cheers with my family and catching the reruns of the earlier seasons on TV at the same time. My ex-wife is a big fan of the show. She would have it play on Netflix a lot, mostly in the background while she was working from home or doing other stuff. So I have seen quite a bit of the series recently through that exposure. But I’m paying closer attention this time around. It’s an easy watch. Very charming. I don’t remember ever having a crush on the character Roz when I was younger. Always liked the character plenty, but not a crush. It’s interesting because I was very prone to TV/Movie crushes g...

I’ve been up and actually out of bed for over an hour. About three hours earlier than normal for me. Had a dream last that was both intoxicating and heartbreaking and felt very real, but I woke up the moment it seemed it was turning into something even more nightmarish. It actually got below freezing last night and remains quite cold this morning so far. This after having the warmest ever Dec-Jan-Feb on record for Central Texas. The poor plants around here just don’t know if it is still Winter or Spring. I don’t have a green thumb, so I am just aping what I hear from people who actually know about that sort of thing. Wish I had a better attack plan for the day to take advantage being up and alert this early but I am just staring at a vortex of fuckery to untangle. Maybe I can just start with figuring out one thing. Then take it from there.

For the record, I am still deeply & completely in love with you. I still think about you all the time. I dream about you. And you look so great in my dreams, even when you are still breaking my heart in them.

A view of my bedside table from just over four years ago today. I think this was snapped on a Friday evening. I was drinking a glass of Knobb Creek bourbon, reading an amazing new translation of Crime & Punishment, and had been sharpening my limited edition Winchester fixed blade hunting knife (not used for hunting, but rather for general cutting purposes which comes in very handy).  It seemed a particularly “manly” confluence of events and items. I was happier then. But it is not just the happiness that i look back on and envy. I envy that this was during a time of my life when happiness felt effortless. It of course wasn’t effortless, just felt that way, especially when compared to where I am at now.  I don't drink anymore. And the last book I read was on a tablet or listened to on Audible. I do still have the knife and it is still handy when I need a solid cutting tool. I can't remember the last time I had such a simple, satisfying evening at home like this...