A Day in the Life

I originally posted this as a FB note exactly three years ago today and decided it's well past time to move to this venue. For the record, I still feel exactly the same about his decision to leave us. I wasn't done knowing him yet. Dear Brian: Your heart was broken? It happens. You felt like you weren’t where you “should” be in life? Yeah, that happens too. You weren’t excited about aging? Welcome to the club. Absolutely none of that excuses or explains robbing those of us who love you from the blessing that was you. You were so shiny with your epic hair and awesome fashion, always fun to watch bobbing around on the dance floor. You made others happy just by showing up, and I loved when random people on the street would ask to take a picture with you. You had an enormous heart, always there to listen and help someone. You were a self-proclaimed asshole, but I disagreed. I trusted you completely and knew that you’d never betray me. You were my go-to guy for so ...

Mom died of brain cancer 25 years ago and it was the hardest single death I've experienced thus far. I joked for years that I started with the worst and everything after that was easy by comparison...I was wrong. One of the weirdest things I've noticed about being in my 40s is that you have to start watching your friends die from things that you used to think were for older people. I've lost friends to heart attack, diabetes complications, stroke, cancer, you name it. I think in your teens and 20s if you have close death, it's primarily to accident or dumbassery. 2014 started off like any other year, but in May I lost a friend to cancer. With his life circumstances and the progress of the disease, it almost seemed a cruel joke for him to go. I took it really hard. Then came June and I got completely floored by the suicide of someone I loved dearly. To be honest, I'm still trying to recover from that one. It was at this point that my depression started over...

Dear Charlie-Dad, I can't believe I'm writing this letter, I just knew you were going to be an immortal creature. You were always so brave and steadfast and I thought you'd live forever on belligerence alone. I'm so not ready to say good-bye. You seemed tired when you were here at Thanksgiving, but then we started making plans for you to move back to Texas next year and I had false hope that you were going to be around a while longer. What a horrible tease. So much of who I am is because of you, and I'm grateful to still have your voice in my head saying all the grumpy things that you loved to say so often. My fierce loyalty, sticking by my guns on tough topics, and most importantly my ability to love unconditionally all came from you. You were an amazing role model for me, like none I've had before or since, and I sincerely hope I've done you proud on how I'm turning out. I wish I'd recorded your stories, I hate that so many were lost with y...

Miss Melantie Jean, I can't believe you've left us already. I wasn't done knowing you, and this is totally not okay with me in any way. So much of my history, so many stories, have gone to the grave with you and I'm having a really hard time getting my head around it. I was just a kid when we met, and I'm so glad you decided to hook up with Andy so you could be my mom-person. Not just a stepmom, no, my buddy, my confidant and a role model for so many things. The first newborn kittens I ever saw were in your closet, you showed me my first episode of Saturday Night Live, the first gravestone rubbing I ever did was with you, you're the reason I did theater, my love of fashion came from you, I could go on and on about all the ways you made me who I am today. Most importantly, you taught me how to take someone else's perspective, educated me about how horrible the world can be, and showed me a kind of unconditional love that I've never experienced before o...

I had a life changing experience yesterday of the pretty awful kind. We pit stopped at a rural gas station in Louisiana and there was a seriously injured possum near where I parked, and a cop who had pulled up to the pump next to mine. I backed away from the possum and pointed at it so the cop saw what was up. He aimed his gun at it while I got in the car to move to another pump. At the time, I wondered if discharging a weapon near a gas pump might be dangerous and I hoped he wouldn't need to use it. I also didn't look that way just in case he did end up shooting it. The possum never moved, he was jacked up like maybe got hit by a car and was terrified...you could see it in his eyes. I know from experience they can be immobile for hours when they're scared, so I wasn't too stressed but was watchful. Meanwhile, my traveling companion went inside the store and the clerk called animal control. The cop went inside the store and we all shopped and whatever before heading...

I'm having a breakdown and I'm strangely comfortable with it. I've been the sad version of myself since last summer and the rest of my emotions are somewhere in the distance. I can see them but can't quite get there, not really, not fully. I've been struggling with major depression and have had many days where upright on the couch (vs. fetal position in the bed) was the best I could do. I've barely been working, I haven't wanted to leave the house much, and I've become more and more introverted as the months pass. It's safe to say I'm a very hot mess right now. Over the last month things have been changing inside me at a scary fast rate, and here's how it happened... Several months ago, a dear friend sent me over this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw which is an animated short about Empathy vs Sympathy. It resonated with me in a way that caused me to go back and keep watching it. Fast forward to the snow/ice week...