[Traditional_Ale]

19 years and 8000 posts later I want to just be straight up for a moment.

1/10 is total hyperbole. I am not in danger in any way.

I am sober for 3yrs, 4mos, and legitimately finally winning at life.

But there is only so much AA, so much therapy that in the end can help, and then its just carrying on carrying on. Nothing prepares you for the long-term game of ending the game of thinking about all the horrible, wrong things that have happened to you. So they simply don't exist in your thinking, impulses, dreams, and most importantly decisions. And doing this knowing that while the game might be over and the effort worthy (self love, mofos), being honest enough to know its never really going away in the way I hoped it could and be okay with that.

There is nobody left. I think I knew it had to be that way. I've also had four very special people in my life die on me in the last while. Sadly, one was my greatest music mentor and friend and wishhewasmyrealdad and brother-in-arms for so many years a lifetime ago. This being said the truth is that he was old and the writing was on the wall given how things went down at the end for him. His life is nuts and a story for another time.

The others are far before their times. Some with a shared history so rich it makes the thought of ever finding morethanfirendship like that again is a level of making myself vulnerable that I am simply unable to get to right now. I thought I could sit with paradoxes, but sometimes they become truly ponderous. That thing about the abyss is true.

I have obviously done the best I can to take care of myself, including socially. But everything feels like a pantomime in that regard. Connection IS hard.