Writing–my THING–doesn’t come as easy these days.  For one, there’s too few hours in the day and I am depleted of energy.  A pinched nerve is no joke.  In fact, for weeks the left side of my body was achy but not the right.  Now, it’s the right and not the left giving me trouble.  I go to physical therpy twice this upcoming week so maybe I can ask what’s going on.  Hell, could be a good sign that it’s letting up.

Other changes are that I’m constantly bouncing back and forth between Ocean Springs and Gulfport.  I live out of two bags a few days a week.  It wears very thin after a while.  And no place can feel like “home” except home.  But that brings up a good point.  After Chloe died, this house didn’t feel like home.  Not at all.  Today I woke up and before I was fully conscious I was missing her.  Then I realized she’s not here to rush to and I was kind of sad.  But I wanted to come anyway.  Because it’s my home.  My stuff is here, I have stuff to do here, I’m comfortable here.  I tidied up a bit, ate leftover Olive Garden, watched Big Bang theory episode, and now I’m curled up in my bed.  I guess a person could do that anywhere, but nothing can replace the feeling of peace of doing it at your own home.  It makes me extremely more sympathetic to the homeless.  Regardless of circumstance on how someone can end up homeless, I cannot imagine not having a place to call your own.  Where you are at peace.  Where you can be yourself, talk to God, talk to yourself if you want, sweep up the dirt.  Just bouncing back and forth makes me miss it so I cannot even comprehend what it would be like to not have a place to go like this.

2014 is proving to be far more difficult than I’d also ever imagined.  It truly is testing my faith.  I used to have faith in the universe, in a God, in the way things unfolded.  While it’s completely unfair to blame any single person for the shifts of 2014, I sorta kinda do.  Again, an unfair accusation.  Maybe it’s the easy way out of my feelings.  Maybe it’s easier to say I no longer have faith or trust because of this specific event as opposed to just simply saying, “pretty much everyone has let me down and events that transpired outside people’s control have fucked me up inside.”  At times I have come home and look at my “Wall of Inspiration” I made and literally said, “I don’t believe a fucking word on that wall anymore.”  But I know there is hope because despite those times, I look today and believe at least a few of them.  Chloe’s death shook me up more than I thought it would and I have battled the depression again since.  I refuse to go back on medication so I’m taking steps once again to right my mind.

Unless you’ve been there, it’s hard to describe to someone the battle of depression.  I won’t waste my precious little energy even addressing those people.  Instead, if you do know or you have been there then I’ve realized one step is being kind to yourself.  I didn’t want to be here without Chloe but I told myself to stay that first night without her anyway and that it was ok to miss her immensely.  I didn’t try and talk myself out of being sad.  Sad isn’t a weakness, nor is depression.  Weakness is not acknowledging the presence of such emotion and not going into the battle against it.  So while it wasn’t easy and I haven’t been successful every try, I finally look forward to being here in the serenity of the home I call mine.  On the flip side, I am utterly and totally alone now in life.  Never been on my own without Chloe until now.  It’s all part of the 2014 life change I guess.

Maybe that’s the point–evolution doesn’t come comfortably.  It’s a slow and agonizing process.  Embracing that fact is probably the hardest and yet most progressive solution of all.  I hold a lot in and I have to let it go.  There’s a lot of confused people out there, I’m just one more fish in the sea.