Tag Archives: sadness

A Farewell

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I hadn’t updated this blog in quite a while. I just haven’t had the heart to do so. It’s because a friend of mine has passed away recently. I won’t get into the details. I won’t say his name because I want the family to have their privacy. I know I’m not popular enough for a bunch of people to try and find them but you never know.

The death was sudden. We didn’t see it coming. He was there one day. I was texting him about when the next time we were going to hang was and then I got a text message from his mother that he was in the hospital. I went to see him that night. I heard the news and said my goodbyes. He was gone by that Saturday.

As I said, I don’t want to talk about the details. But I will talk about who he was as a person. He was a man that had been put into an absolutely terrible situation. One that would cause any other person to feel rage or anger. Him on the other hand, he was always patient, always kind. He had lost his father when he was much younger, when we were teens. When my own passed, I told him I guess we’re in the same shitty club.

I’m reminded of a line from Cold Mountain, where Stobrod sees the grave of Pangle. “If God was to set out killing every man on earth in order of their demerits, that boy would bring up the hind end of the line.” It’s suitable for him. He was kind, always. He was gentle, always. He loved his nieces and nephews. He loved his family. He loved everyone.

He had a love of movies that I think was more of an extension of that love. I think that he was just interested in people and their stories. Because of that, I constantly think about the movies I’m going to see and how we won’t be able to talk about them. The shows we were watching that I have to finish on my own.

It hits me in bits and pieces. I think it’s going to start hitting me more as time goes on. When I come down to visit my mom and I know that I’m not going to go see him. It hasn’t happened yet because of holidays, which always screwed up our hang out schedule as well as it’s only been about two weeks.

I don’t have much else to say about this. Usually when I make posts that aren’t about the stupid nerd shit that I like, I offer some kind of way forward. Some little thing that you and I can do to make our lives a little bit better. I don’t have that.

Grief is like nothing else. There is no path but forward. No way but through. It’s a vast ocean that you float in and have to keep your head over water. The waves will hit you and you will feel yourself get overwhelmed. But if you kick your legs and fight to live and honor the people you loved. You’ll get to shore.

Weird Fear of Failure

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I had a conversation with my therapist about why I continually consume the same media, which is stuff I’ve seen before and police bodycam videos like those put out by Boze vs. the World. I don’t watch normal TV shows or movies all that often except when I see something that really interests me. Admittedly, I know this seems a little strange because I watch new things every week for Teen Girl Talk but those feel more like a job than something I do for pleasure. Despite the fact that I love doing Teen Girl Talk? It’s the obligation that pushes me to do it.

Now, as my career in attending therapy has reached the American voting age, I’ve learned to constantly think about things and the reason I think the things I think. So, I had been chewing on why I didn’t encounter the new that often. And it came down I’m afraid of failing. At watching TV. That makes sense.

Of course it doesn’t, that’s the problem with depression and anxiety. They hardly make sense. So, we have to figure out the stupid logic behind it.

For this particular thing I was able to think back to when I was a young concert attending kid. I would discover a new band, fall in love and do whatever I could to discover everything about them. I had to hear every song. Every demo. Everything. If I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t get into the band. Thus, for bands with big discographies, I’ve kept myself away knowing that I could never quite “finish” with the band.

It follows the same thing about movies and TV shows. Movies less so because so many of them are solo projects unless it’s the Jason movies. But with TV shows, I keep thinking that I have to watch everything. If I start something, I have to finish it. For some Netflix shows that’s easy because Netflix just gave up. But for others like Star Trek, those feel like behemoths. I’ll never be able to finish all of it.

My therapist challenged me on this, why do I have to? If I like something, I can watch it as I want. If I don’t like it, I can just stop. She wants me to start watching something and stop after ten minutes. That doesn’t feel quite the solution but it does lead me to do something else. To get out and try. Even if I don’t hear every scary story in a horror podcast that’s been running for years, I can at least try something new.

That was kind of the whole point of doing the one hundred albums in a year was to break me out of this mindset. To push me to keep doing something new and discovering other things. The fact of the matter is when I find something new, I feel good. I can’t let the fear keep me from that feeling because it, like the anxiety and depression that spawn it, only survive when I feed them. Time to make them starve.