Day: April 25, 2022

It starts with small things. Those things closest to the surface floating like debris in your mind; floating as though your mind were a vast ocean of thought and memory and that ocean is becoming unknowable. It starts by reaching for a name. You see it. The name lingers just out of reach and you cannot remember. You’re a decent researcher though, aren’t you? You can remember some of the things the artist did and you find the name that way. This works for a while–you reshaping habits to fish out these lost memories of things that don’t truly matter because you are afraid you’ll lose the things that truly do matter.

But you have lost those things. The worst part is you don’t even know you lost them.

You learn of the loss in the moments of closeness with your partner that grow ever more rare. She tells you about a thing you did together, hoping to share in the memory of the moment, but for you the moment is a mystery and that other moment–the ephemeral space of you and her together lost in time–shrinks. You are not you so much anymore. You are not the you she loved so deeply. You are not the you that was once in love with himself. You are adrift, lost in this unknowable ocean of chaos and unsure what to do with any of it.

It starts with small things; lost memories, micro-agressions, moments of sadness that seep into your daily functioning. All of these things add up until a life that is begins to fall into a life that was and the people around you grow spikes and dark faces.

It starts with small things, but how does it end?

The blog is horribly out of whack in terms of what posts happen on what days. I’ll strive to get it back on track this week. I’d intended to climb back into the writing saddle this week as well, but my headspace suggests this will not be possible. Never say never. I’ll just say not now. For now I’m still grasping at the low hanging fruit of Elden Ring and trying to get my classes closed out for the semester. I have a handful of courses finishing up projects and once done I will have weeks off. My partner is about done, which is a double edged sword in a sense. It means I’ll be able to see her more but it also means I’ll be less focused and have less alone time in regards to the work being done. Balance is a precious and unusually rare thing and I fail to locate it constantly.

Some Thoughts:

1. Dark blogs lately. I hope to be around to look back on this years later and be like, wow, I was in a bad place.
2. Yeah, that was pretty dark too…
3. I’m giving a talk this upcoming week and I haven’t exactly planned what to say for the 75 minute span of time. I honestly don’t have 75 minutes worth of talk in me. Hopefully Q&A brings out the gold.
4. My kid collected the bronze this weekend in the 110. Good for him.
5. I am fighting to keep him in his school in spite of the drama surrounding his football program and the violence he’s dealt with. The truth of the matter is, he can grow from this. My fear is he will do what I did and go to where the grass seems greener. It wasn’t. I found my life there, but I wrecked my career entirely.