exhausted

 Hey Mike,

Where to even start?

With Israel and Hammas going at it yet again - slaughtering and terrorizing innocent people on both sides, again. Fucking religion is the single worst human trait, and no one, not even the most beatific Buddhist is going to change my mind. It's tragic, and now that we have all this immediate flooding of live broadcasts from people's phones on the ground - the carnage and destruction escalates not only my rage but my feelings of despair. 

I guess it's fine that the final sweet release from this stupid, stupid world will be due to someone's misplaced desire to control others - rather than the epic continent-shearing earthquake or meteor hit.

Fucking dinosaurs.

Speaking of actual faultlines - had a nice earthquake on Sunday night - about a 4.5 (which I reflexively guessed correctly, and felt necessary to share with everyone; I even texted Karen). There was this delightful moment where the shaking was at what ended up being its peak and it hit me that I was on the 12th floor, and the go-to defense for my life has always been: get outside.

What do I do in a building like this? Strongest part of the building, right? So I should have gotten my ass out of bed (which is nestled up against the windowed north wall) and gone into the bathroom, right?

I didn't do that though. I just laid there with my dog and was ready to go full prone-Fight Club and watch it all come crashing down around or on top of me.

I am not in a great place mentally, clearly.

Yeah. Then, as I was doing my nightly sub-optimal crawl through the 'Gram, I rolled past a quote from someone - it is probably an interpretation of this quote from Salmon Rushdie:

“Whenever someone who knows you disappears, you lose one version of yourself. Yourself as you were seen, as you were judged to be. Lover or enemy, mother or friend, those who know us construct us, and their several knowings slant the different facets of our characters like diamond-cutter's tools. Each such loss is a step leading to the grave, where all versions blend and end.”

Of course - because you are the person who I was closest to who has died (I mean, my dad died, but he didn't know me like you did, on so many levels) its you who comes to mind, Mike.

Yet, it gnaws at me because at the end of our relationship and your time on earth, I remember being so frustrated with this feeling that you didn't know me, the me that I am now.

Growing old and evolving is such a strange journey. I am one hundred percent not what I expected to be, but mostly because I never expected anything. Watching my mom decline, it occurs to me that not having an expectation of what you want to become in the long term does not serve us well. Sure, I had plenty of fantasy scenarios but never moved to pursue them - I was much more someone who just kept jumping from raft to raft thinking that eventually I'd figure out what I was going to do with myself.

What's really weird, is even in the times that I thought I had made a choice as to what I was gonna do (thinking here about being married with a kid, a chef, or working in politics after canvassing) I still just gave up when it ceased to be...working? Interesting? I dunno.

Jesse was up last week because his dad died and he was taking care of the estate, we met up and I realized I hadn't seen him in at least a decade.

We met for lunch and then went out to visit my mom, and it was a strange, kind of depressing visit. I felt really stupid around him, much less sharp, much less on my game than ever before.

I dunno - is it ridiculous to think that you just pick back up with folks? Pick what up? In the larger sense, we are both different people - even when I made a disparaging remark about LJ wearing a Trump hat on social media, there was a hesitation, where I think he would have pushed back if it hadn't been me. Because it was me, and he was probably sure that the me he has always known would have laid into him, he let it drop. He's not wrong - back in the day I would have gone in, but now? Now I was merely throwing up my hands in defeat by even mentioning that my oldest nephew is wearing swag that brands him as a stupid, greedy, entitled misogynist. 

AT BEST.

Anyway, all this to say I am at a weird spot and have no idea in the most tangible way I've ever experienced, of what to do next. Every night I lay down and think I'm more likely to not wake up than I am to see the next day. I literally worry about KC not having enough water to survive waiting until someone finally comes looking for me if I die in my apartment.

Cool, cool, cool.