Wrapping up

2012 is almost over. Normally, I have a sense of relief to have another 12 months "safely" behind me, but this year I don't care. It's done and another shitty year is on its way. I'm trying not to start things out with a crappy attitude, but I don't have the energy to pretend things are going to get better. I'm in the same place I was last year, except I'm fully aware of how stupid I was to have hope or to even try.

I'm working tonight. The first time I'n three years. Usually I take New Years Eve off to go see the Winterhawks, but I can never afford to go. As it is, I haven't been to a single game all season. There's no NHL to watch either.

I hope 2013 brings good things for you. I don't have anything else to say.

On your way to heaven, did you say "I'll see you again"?

I got a package in the mail today.  I've mentioned my friend Danny before. He died of a drug overdose in 2004, and though we have never met, I still keep in touch with his mom. Twice a year -on his birthday and his going away day- I send her a card and a letter, and she always writes me back. I hear about his life outside of my (former) little group of friends, and she hears about his life outside of his family. It's bittersweet, but memories are all we have. I just like her to know that we're always thinking of Danny and we'll never forget him. 

In the package I received was a Christmas card, a letter and two little boxes; one for me and one for my sister. Inside was a Serenity Prayer pocket token:

I don't believe in god, but I'm familiar with the serenity prayer. Dan's mom says that everyone in the family has one of these tokens and use them as keychains. I'm wearing mine as a necklace. 

In her letter, she talked about Christmas and how, no matter what age they were, everyone got a present. About how Dan had this friend (I knew him, too) whose father was awful to him, so Dan would bring him home a lot and they all made him feel like part of the family. About how Dan used to take friends to his grandma's house for cookies. I love finding out these new things about him; it's like he's not really gone. And it validates my feeling that Dan wasn't a junkie -- he was a kind, loving man with an addiction. 

In her letter, she wrote:

"After losing Danny, I think of things differently. So many things are not important to worry about. You actually feel good about picking what's important enough to take your time - the most important thing we have. That's where the serenity prayer comes in."

She ended the letter with:

"Thanks again for the cards you send. It's like getting a hug in the mail on a day you think no one remembers."

It made me happy to read that.  Danny wasn't perfect (who is?), but he was ours. And he always will be.  

 

“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.”

What I thought was just a simple meet up with friends for coffee turned into an afternoon of laughter, food and incredibly undeserved generosity.

I have no words right now except to say I have amazing friends, and I don't know what I would do without them. I'm so overwhelmed by their love and support and kindness that I'm crying as I type this.

I have been dangerously low this past month, so close to the edge, and a few hours with my friends—forcing myself to stand back and let myself accept whatever they had to give—has done more to warm my cold heart than a month of therapy ever did.

If you're reading this, thank you. I don't deserve it, but THANK YOU. From the bottom of my gobvlixi heart, I love you.

"Christmas is not only getting too commercial, it's getting too dangerous."

Deadly shooting at Clackamas Town Center. News won't stop covering it, trying to find reason and meaning in what happened.

I'm sorry it happened, and it shouldn't have happened, but Christmas is the saddest, loneliest, most depressing time of year. More so now than ever before. I'm not saying there's no good in the world; I'm saying it's harder to see the good when you're reminded, daily, for a month, of everything you don't have or have lost or are burdened with. It's no wonder people go a little crazy this time of year. Everywhere you turn, Christmas cheer is being shoved down your throat. It's overwhelming.

Bah humbug. I hate Christmas, and I stand by that hate. If that makes me an asshole, so be it. 

My past is everything I failed to be.

“My hapless peers with their lofty dreams--how I envy and despise them! I'm with the others, the even more hapless, who have no-one but themselves to whom they can tell their dreams and show what would be verses if they wrote them. I'm with those poor slobs who have no books to show, who have no literature beside their own soul, and who are suffocating to death due to the fact that they exist without having taken that mysterious, transcendental exam that makes one eligible to live.” 

To the dreamer there is no waking, no real world, no sanity; there is only the screaming bedlam of sleep.

“There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes to where life is not painful; nor is there a port of call where it is possible to forget.” 

I have no peace in dreams anymore. When I was a kid, I kept a notebook by my bed, and I would write down my dreams as soon as I woke up. My therapist told me that's probably why my dreams are so vivid and why I'm able to recall them so well as an adult. Considering the nature of my dreams lately, that's not a good thing. 

I find myself dreaming often about my cat, who died in October.  The dreams vary but the end is always the same: she saves me. Something horrible is about to occur, Freddie comes to me and I pick her up and she saves me from destruction. I don't know what that means except that I miss her terribly. Maybe subconsciously I want to be saved, but in my heart and in my head I know there is no rescue. No one can save me but me, and I don't even think I'm worth the bother. 

I dream a lot about people who have hurt me, who I haven't seen in a year or more, who my brain tells me I'm better off without but my heart still hurts for the loss of them. So much so that sometimes I can't breathe, and I hate myself for having felt so much for nothing. I dream a lot about loss and destruction, and no small wonder - my life is one of regret. I have accomplished very little and I have wasted too many years to seek any sort of redemption for my cowardice.  

I am a cynic and the holidays bring out the worst in me.  Christmas only reminds me of my dad and all those old songs on the radio remind me of everything I've lost and everything I cannot or will not allow myself to have.  Every night I go to work and listen to my coworkers talk about their families, about what they're getting their husbands/boyfriends and kids. I think about everyone I care about and I have nothing that I can give them. 

I find no rest in sleep, no peace in waking. I would give anything to change that. 

“O night in which the stars feign light, O night that alone is the size of the Universe, make me, body and soul, part of your body, so that—being mere darkness—I’ll lose myself and become night as well, without any dreams as stars within me, nor a hoped-for sun shining with the future.”  

Meaninglessness means there's nothing to stop us from creating meaning for ourselves.

Midway life's journey I was made aware

That I had strayed into a dark forest,

And the right path appeared not anywhere.

I hate Sundays. I think it goes back to being forced to wake up early and go to church when I was a kid. Or maybe it's because I stay up all night so I don't throw off my schedule working the night shift. (Typed that as "shit." Almost didn't correct it.) 

I feel like shit, and I'm working six days this week. A co-worker is on vacation, so at least I'll have six days to get a little overtime. I need to see my NP because I'm out of RXs for my ADHD meds, and I think my anti-depressants need to be adjusted or changed altogether. 

I read 26 books in 2010, 37 books in 2011, and this year I have read 60 books. I have just started my 61st: Driving with Plato, by Robert Rowland Smith.   I'm also watching Planet Hulk, because I have raging ADHD.

Got some film developed the other day. I miss my cameras; I haven't been shooting much lately, especially now that the rainy season started. 

Sunset over the coastal range


Amusing little car at the Grand Lodge.


The Doctor's Office Bar at the Grand Lodge.


Hello, me.


More of the Grand Lodge


The Blue Heron French Cheese Company in Tillamook


More Cheese Company


Hello again, me


Rockaway Beach


My friend, V, and her dog, Ike at Rockaway (annual girls' weekend!)


Goblins at an abandoned lumber mill










To Write Love On Her Arms










Willkommen. Bienvenue. Welcome. C'mon in.


Why, yes. I am an amazing photographer.