72

June 24th, 2020 was the last time you heard from me, if this is what qualifies as hearing from me. 10 weeks and 2 days ago if you were to count it. 72 days. A lot has changed but simultaneously I wonder if anything has changed. To catch y'all up in a few short sentences, here's all that happened: I became closer with friends at work and even started to hang out with them outside of work. I turned 21 and had a few too many shots in 40 minutes to celebrate. I had a wonderful week off from work, exploring various halls of fame and just hanging out with the family. I joined a friend's cousin's discord gaming clan, Hounds of Hades, and have been chilling and hanging out with them. There are very tangible, very real talks of promoting me to shift leader at work. And last but not least, I've gotten back into streaming video games again on Twitch. And while all of that is great, I wonder why I am here. Why have I returned to a place that I was gone from for over 2 months. A place where I had gone to write out my feelings and thoughts and inner darkness and turmoils. A place that I thought I would leave behind me in my past and move on without it. Truth be told, I'm occasionally dealing with some waves of the storm. A quote I once saw was:

A letter on loss 

Alright, here goes. I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far) and a lot of people I've known and loved did not. I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two cents. I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don't want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see. As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive. In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out.Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks."

I know that that is a long read in and of itself, but it's crucial to what I'm writing here today for.

In the beginning of my realization of the destruction I had a hand in in February, there were indeed waves that were 100 feet tall, and all I'm clinging on to was a piece of the wrecked ship that I managed to find. I had really dark times, feel sad and sorry for myself, kicking myself for behaving the way that I did for destroying something precious and so beautiful.

As time did pass and I worked through it, those waves kept on coming. They were huge at first and they started to get smaller. I had felt less bad but still bad enough about it that I had times of wishing things were different and that I could go back to the way things were before it all.

As days became weeks and weeks became months, those waves did eventually shrink in size, and started to arrive less frequently, but occasionally enough to push me and rock me around. The main storm has passed, but the waves of its aftermath is still affecting me.

Almost exactly 1 month ago, I had finally sent those final letters. As I had expected upon sending them, no response from either one, and I didn't think I was going to get one. About 3 weeks after sending the letters, I had found myself yearning for an answer, and a want to reach out to my former best friend of 2.5 years. I toughed it out and after texting a couple of friends, they told me to pray about it and power through it. I didn't exactly pray about it much, maybe once but as I was falling asleep so I never really finished that prayer I think.

The most recent wave was definitely smaller than any of the ones before, but still a wave nonetheless. Exactly 7 months later (since it is September 4th, 2020). The cause of it was a more personal matter, and I had considered opening up to a friend who supported me through my tough times and who was the one who welcomed me with open arms into the clan I now happily claim to be a part of. I've been wanting to tell this friend about what I've been thinking about, but I can never bring myself to because of shame and doubt and x, y, and z. I can find millions of reasons to not start the process, but maybe I should begin it at least?

That part is beside the point for right now. The point is that the last time I opened up to a close friend or even best friend is that it ended horribly. I know that's irrational thinking and paranoia as that was one instance and it was just immaturity on all sides leading to that kind of uprooting. But it made me think of that former friend again about how I actually was getting closer to him and trusting him with my inner secrets I hadn't told anyone before. Darker moments that crossed my mind, my ins and outs of my thoughts, and he was a good sponge and helped me through it. But now I don't have him in my life because of what I've done. I know I have other friends who I'm sure would be willing to throw their all to support me through whatever it is I'm going through, but it's just that the thought of opening up reminds me of what was.

It makes me wonder if the letter was ever received. Did he move out so the letter made it to the last known location and eventually was trashed because the recipient was never there? Did the letter get opened but discarded or otherwise destroyed? Then the memories I had with him started to come in. Such good times that I will never regret, from playing games, to sending memes, to shooting guns, to almost anything you could think of. It had made me somber for a moment.

Maybe this is just a wave I gotta hold on tight to whatever I can grasp onto and let it pass. I know it is definitely a wave, but it feels small. Say maybe 10-25 feet max. I know that's still large, but in comparison to what I say was the 100 foot waves? Pocket lint in comparison. Maybe there will be a day when this storm affects me no more and I can set foot on land, build me a new ship, and set sail off to adventure where I've yet to explore with my setbacks wrecking my last ship. To just get back up and go because the only thing that will be holding me down once I get back to "land" is myself.

I do know that sometimes people come in to your life for just a moment, and fade out because they had served their purpose and taught you all that they could. There's definitely someone who would say coincidence or conspiracy. I believe in something, no, someone greater than all of that who brought him into my life for 2.5 years to learn how to trust people, and talk to people. To bond with people. Maybe all that I could have gotten from him has been obtained and while it is sad to part ways, that maybe this is what was intended from the beginning. Because if you really want to get sad over people leaving my life, why haven't I made such a big deal with a lot of the people I regularly hung out with in middle school or high school? I parted ways with 99% of them after high school, and that 1% is just an occasional text here and there. There were a lot of people I don't get to see anymore because of my lack of student status at Liberty (and what with COVID-19 now anyways), and I'm not nearly as this impacted. I mean yes, I love all the people I met at LU and would do anything to hang out with them again, but it's not the same sadness I feel when I look back on it.

So here I am, writing about who knows what. I'm braving this next wave now, and I don't know how often I'll return to create a new entry. I'm still alive (as you can see by reading this) and I guess it's just time for me to rediscover myself and let go of the fears that hold me back from bonding closer with the people I wish to bond closer to.