"Sex Dreams" (this blog is rated PG-13) 2-2-17

I don’t remember much from my dreams. Sometimes I go for weeks without remembering a single one. The only time I tend to really retain anything from them is when my sleep is choppy or if I oversleep and with my apartment building being an annoying and noisy place lately, going to sleep has been tough and getting 7-8 uninterrupted hours of sleep has been virtually impossible. The result is I’ve been getting to sleep late, oversleeping, shutting off my alarm and then waking up 1-2 hours later. It’s frustrating but if there was one silver lining, yes I always try to find one, it’s that I’ve been remembering my dreams during these oversleep and intermittent sleep sessions and now I have some questions. 

First understand, my dreams aren’t too far out and it's probably a direct result of who I am. There’s far more substance in my dreams, more conversations than flash. There are no plaid unicorns, flying cars or far-away worlds. My dreams are like independent films, sometimes even sit-coms, but generally they just seem like an extension of real life. They feature people I know, people I want to know and sometimes people I don’t want to know but have seen somewhere. They are probably pretty boring to anyone other than myself. Actually my daydreams are far more abstract, vivid and exciting but of course I have a little more conscious control over those.

In last night’s dream I was talking with a local performer who I’d never really had a conversation with but admired from afar. We met at an Allentown bar, hit it off immediately (gotta love dreams) and we had a lot in common. We talked politics, music, film, pop culture, philosophy… a wide range of topics. We talked for hours but it seemed like 20 minutes which is always a good sign. We became very flirty and playful. I noticed that something I said made her ever so gently lick her lips. There was a look in her eye and it was unmistakable. I can only imagine the vibe I was giving off. Sparks were in the air. I went in and we kissed, passionately, for a significant period of time like two long lost lovers who were recently reunited after an eternity apart. It was powerful. When we finally loosened our lips we both agreed that we wanted to continue our conversation elsewhere, somewhere more private.

We went back to my place and she started going through my things, my book, movie and poetry collections, all while being so devilishly sexy. Just when I thought I couldn’t be into her any more, she’d say insightful things about a film in my collection that raised the ceiling. She was amazing! Eventually we sat together on the bed and proceeded to make out again except this time, our hands began exploring. If the windows in my cozy place weren’t fogged up, I would have been surprised. In a very sultry manner she began to remove her shirt and before I knew it… we were both lying next to each other, a little sweaty, both pleased at what transpired. It was getting very late but we couldn’t even think about tomorrow because we were too busy living in that moment, in that room, in that bed. The passion was still palpable despite the fact that the explosions were over and the tide had settled down. It was like we had finished in one sense but at the same time, we were just beginning. As if a sudden itch struck me, I had the strangest feeling that something was missing…

This is what happens in every one of my “sex dreams”. There’s a pretty big lack of sex in them. I’ve never remembered a single dream where I’ve ever engaged in sex or experienced an orgasm. I find it hard to remember a dream where there was even any nudity. Even this last one, when we cut from making out to lying on the bed beside each other, the perspective was from the neck up but there was a first. For the first time in the dream itself, I wondered why I couldn't remember having sex. Maybe that's why I thought the same thing when I woke up. Is this normal? Sex without the sex? I’m wondering why this is. I dream about interactions with females constantly, or at least constantly in the dreams I can recall. We talk and talk and talk and if things progress to a romantic level the dream basically fades to black at the onset of skintimacy and then comes back from the commercial break edit with the aftermath. And when it comes to the aftermath, cue the intimate conversation. This begs the question; is my dream sex-life a made for TV movie? Why the lack of sex? I’m not religious. Do I think about sex enough during my waking hours that I filled my quota? Does this occur because I value the emotional or intellectual connection more than the physical one? I have a very high sex drive but an even higher standard of emotional connection. Does this play a role?

I’ve never thought about it until this morning. I woke up feeling like I spent the most incredible evening with this woman but I don’t remember a “lick” of it. When it dawned on me that I couldn’t remember the sex parts it strangely made sense... I NEVER remember the sex parts, the naked time, the sweaty Eddie and sexy lady time. Why is this? Is it me? I guess it has to be, right? But I want to know, does this happen to other people too or am I some subconsciously repressed weirdo? I’m looking at this now more from curiosity than fulfilling my lusty desires. Besides, it’s not like I’m actually getting sex out of this either way. But why does it seem like my conscious mind has a greater imagination than my subconscious one? Perhaps the really crazy, the really creative dreams are those ones I can never remember. So I pose this question to those of you who have a similar thing going on or those of you who have a better understanding of dreams than I do… why are my sex dreams PG-13?  

The girl down the hall... (1/24/17)

If I go by just the location and the space, I'm satisfied with my apartment. But unfortunately there’s more to it than that. Some of my neighbors are real disrespectful idiots and assholes. The person who blasted the music at nightclub levels in December has been cool since I wrote that note asking them to please think of the others who live there. But now there’s a new menace; the girl down the hall. She is something straight out of Springer or Maury, who’s in her mid-20’s but speaks like a 15-year old. She has a 5 or 6 year old daughter who I’ve never seen because she doesn’t live with her mom. I also know this girl was in jail not too long ago because I overheard, through the thin walls of my building, one of her friends saying how the guy she was seeing at the time cheated on her while she was in jail. That’s a shame. All that said, things have been okay until she hooked up with this crazy dude last week. 

Every night since there's 4-6 people over at her place in the evening and partying til whenever. Now thankfully she doesn't really have a stereo so there isn't much noise from the apartment itself but do you know that feeling you have when you know bad people are nearby? It’s discomforting and you just wonder what bad thing is going to happen and it’s a question of when instead of if. The biggest problem I have is that they have to pass by my apartment to get to the stairs and door to come in or go outside and they aren't real polite about it. The first night they partied on a weeknight until well after 2. Again the noise didn't bother me until people started going in and out passing by my door having conversations at full volume or even yelling at each other like freaking high schoolers. They woke me up at least once that night. I wrote down the specifics of what happened in a journal I am keeping of incidents. The next night they smoked so much weed they set off the smoke detectors at 12:42am. Thankfully I hadn't gone to bed yet but it still startled the crap out of me and I by the time I went out into the hall to check on it, they had taken the battery out or something because it had stopped but I heard them discussing why the alarm went off. The next few days they partied at night but it wasn't anything too terrible outside of a few angry screaming matches at reasonable times and some smoking in the hall/stairway. You know how it is with the Springer/Maury crowd… one minute they love each other more than anything that ever existed, the next they are screaming bloody murder at one another and need to be pulled apart. So I’m trying to play this cool and let this thing go away on its own. 

Last night, it kinda did although it was an escalation. Apparently the boyfriend was out in front of my building trying to badger people into giving him money. He screamed at and told a fellow beggar who passed by to suck his d***. He then, from what I can tell, went to the bar a few buildings over, started some shit and could be heard out on the sidewalk, once again in front of my building telling some people from the bar to suck his **** repeatedly as well as threatening anyone who had to say anything to him or came near him. Honestly, I hoped some people from the bar would shut this guy up. Finally for a few minutes things were quiet until 4 police cars came flying up the street and parked outside my building. Turns out the douche went across the street to Walgreens. That’s why it was quiet for a few moments. A few more police cars showed up. The police went in there and arrested the belligerent fool. I have to tell you. I don’t even know if the neighbor girl knew he was arrested because my apartment is the only one facing the street. She wouldn’t have seen the lights. But let me tell you, things were so quiet after that. It was wonderful. It was kind of like how it was before the girl started seeing this guy. Because when it's just her and her usual friends/family, they're actually not bad at all. Now all I'm doing is keeping my journal of everything that's going on and trying not to get directly involved in the drama, because hey, you really don't want to get into that stuff right where you live. Besides, with this girl's dating history from what I hear in the hallway, the chances are really good that this guy won't last too long. Oh and did I mention she's 3 months pregnant too? I want to try real hard not to judge, but damn these people suck. Welcome to my nightmare. I only have 9 months left on my lease. 

the failure of Obama and the Democrats... (1-19-17)

Now that we are on the eve of the apocalypse, or Trump’s inauguration for those of you who aren’t political, can we now look at things clearly? Because we cannot continue to look at the world through rose-colored glasses or behind veils of denial any longer. The stakes have simply gotten too high. All I keep hearing lately is about how much people are going to miss President Obama. Ask the people of Yemen how much they’ll miss him between bombings. While you’re at it, ask pretty much any country in that region and you might not get the sentimental rhetoric we’re hearing from many Americans this week. Let’s be honest, a lot of that sentiment is a direct result of the stark contrast in personalities between Mr. Obama and the guy coming in next. Because of Trump and how he is, it makes Obama seem like he’s more than he is and to me he’s far less than that, politically speaking.

We can talk about Barack Obama’s wonderful exit speech last week but in reality I tuned him out a while back. I voted for him twice, one time enthusiastically (2008) and one time reluctantly (2012). The fact of the matter is I’ve never been more disappointed in a politician in my lifetime, partly because I feel like I was duped by him, since his message of hope and his many promises were never kept and partly because he himself set the bar incredibly high and failed to live up to it. He didn’t even come close. Yes he’s classy, extremely intelligent, an amazing orator, has a great temperament and he even seems like a cool dude, but as a president he’s failed miserably to deliver the hope and change he promised and had us believing he’d deliver. For the most part, he’s just delivered more of the same. Slightly better than George W. Bush wasn't what we signed up for. Why else would the nation feel like change was needed again? Think back to January 2009 when Obama was inaugurated… do you feel more hopeful now than on that day? Do you feel like the things that needed to change have changed? I feel like in some ways we are worse now because progress wasn't made. Yes I have health insurance, but since they didn’t go with a public option and kept private insurance companies involved, Obamacare hasn’t been as efficient or as effective as advertised, leaving the door open for extreme criticism from the other side and from those whose premiums keep going up. Yes it’s been a godsend for some, myself included but this year, instead of having several choices for which insurance I want, there was only 1 choice to “choose” from in the “marketplace”. The private insurance companies weren’t seeing enough profits through Obamacare so some of them took their ball and went home. There are many flaws in the ACA and now instead of fixing them and improving the imperfect but necessary program I fear the entire system will get discarded by the Republicans and IF it’s replaced at all, it will likely be replaced with some bogus voucher program that they’ve been talking about for the last 8 years that nobody but they and their business buddies want. Speaking of them, income inequality in this country is worse than it’s been since the 1920’s. This did not improve during Obama’s 2 terms. Major companies continue to merge into supercompanies and rich people still buy elections. Not a single crook who helped to destroy our economy before Obama's arrival did any jail time despite their business model being nothing more than fraud... are you kidding me?!? Civil Rights and voting rights seem to be evaporating every year in favor of increased rights and power for the corporate sector and the oligarchs. Crooked corporations were bailed out and are now stronger than they were before the recession but nearly half of Americans live in poverty. When do the people get bailed out? In a lot of ways, things are worse than they were in 2008. Why else would there be such a backlash in the form of Trump?

Fact: Obama is the first president EVER to have troops at war somewhere in the world for an entire 8-year presidency. Why? Remind me why we're doing it again? What are we fighting for? Why are we still there? Why are we constantly trying to topple regimes? Why are we so upset that other countries are trying to meddle in our elections? We’ve been doing it for decades! Perhaps the attempts to undermine our democracy have occurred as a direct consequence of our thirst for imperialism and our continued attempts to rule the world like some power hungry red, white and blue global dictator. Since the events of 9/11 and subsequent response we have been at perpetual war over in the Middle East. In 2 months we’re coming up on the 14^th anniversary of the United States having troops over there. You think all that war and fighting and arming of rebels is cheap? All those trillions used to fight abroad to protect the rich man’s lies and the rich man’s oil interests could have been used to provide public college and health care to citizens and there would have been plenty left over to modernize and repair our crumbling infrastructure. Notice I didn’t say “free” college or “free” health care. It’s time to drop that tired narrative. If you are a citizen of this country you have rights and you absolutely deserve certain things, especially from the richest country in the history of this world. Other major countries do this without issue and strangely their health care systems are more efficient and far less costly than others, hmmm. When you privatize the crap out of what should be essential systems and programs, all you are doing is creating a systemic division between haves and have nots, splitting up citizens in the name of profit. In terms of spending for the greater good, other countries see this as a moral obligation to their citizens; ours sees it as radical fantasy, a pipe dream while they dream about more pipelines. The fact of the matter is that trillions of “our” dollars have inexplicably been spent on things other than US, for terrible reasons and with many Americans dying both here and abroad as a result. Why people aren’t more up in arms over this when cities don’t have clean drinking water and several places suffer the effects of an antiquated infrastructure is beyond me. The naked truth is that our leadership has failed us, the Democrats especially. I blame the Democrats more than the Republicans because we know what we’re getting from the Republicans. They don’t hide it. Their playbook for several decades is to make the rich richer, privatize everything, worship golden idols, shrink social domestic spending, bloat military spending, tell everyone else what to do and piss on the poor. That’s trickle-down economics folks. We’ve already proven it doesn’t work. We’ve already proven that Republicans by and large do not do things with the best interests of everyone in mind, just the chosen few. Fighting for the rest of us was supposed to be the Democrats job. And don’t get me wrong, they still claim that they do this, but sadly their actions in recent years show otherwise and the results are telling. See the recent election trends for proof. Again, if Obama was so good, why have we gone in such a drastic, opposite direction? People are hurting, they're scared and they feel like no one is there for them so when a sleazy con man with no morals actually speaks to them and pretends to share the same values, the people are so happy that someone is actually speaking to them and for them that they'll overlook his historic flaws and come together in support of their new paper champion. You have to remember that values unite people while issues divide. If you speak to people's values, you can win. And win they did leaving the Democratic Party searching for answers. 

Let’s face it, the Democratic party is in trouble, big trouble. This is nothing new, but Trump may have been the coup de grace. We can talk about Gerrymandering, fake news, voter suppression, the so called liberal media and all this stuff but I saw a statistic recently that there are only 4 states in the entire country that have a democratic governor AND democratic state legislature. ONLY 4! That means in 46 states Republicans have control of one or both! That’s not winning folks. Do you remember in 2012 when Romney lost and the popular narrative was that the Republicans were out of touch with voters and regular people? That’s a half truth because BOTH parties are out of touch, clearly listening more to the money and the elites in their parties rather than the people. It’s taken a while but I think we’re starting to notice, hence the incredible popularity of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump last year. One party establishment was just better at squashing their populist “outbreak”. While they succeeded in beating back the challenge of Bernie Sanders and the progressive movement he represents the Democrats have failed in almost every other endeavor. In fact, I think it’s safe to say the Democratic party is now a joke, but they don’t get it. Don’t believe me? In 2009 when Obama took office, there were 10 more Democratic Governors, 70 more Democratic representatives in the House and several more Democratic senators. In all the Democrats have lost over 900 federal and state seats since Obama was sworn in. What we have right now is the greatest concentration of Republican power since the time of Lincoln! If you want to go even further, if you eliminate the votes of the 2 biggest coastal states, California and New York, both of which are decidedly blue, Trump beat Hillary by over 3 million votes in the popular vote of the remaining 48. They can point fingers and cast blame all they want but the reality is that the Democrats simply have lost the people. How else could you explain such results? The party’s handpicked successor represented more of the same and in a country with an enormous appetite for change, it says a lot that the people would rather choose a rich celebrity with no experience over a highly qualified but deeply flawed candidate who represented the worst of the party when it came to corporate connections and who lacked a real message. Trump and Sanders had strong messages that resonated with the people. We can debate how authentic that message was when it comes to Trump but he was smart enough to tell the people what they wanted to hear in a way that made them believe him. He spoke to the people while Democrats spoke at them. Try as the tone-deaf Democrats could, even with President Obama strongly behind Hillary Clinton, the fractured, fallen party could not beat arguably the worst candidate in history. Think about that. For something that unbelievable to happen I think it’s safe to say that the party was not and is not in tune with the people. Instead of blaming millennials, the Russians, Wikileaks, Bernie or busters, racists, white men, Faux News or whatever, just stop. Stop and think about what’s happened, be honest about why it did and fix it Democrats. If you refuse to accept this responsibility one of 2 things will happen: a grassroots fight for a 3^rd major party could be on the way that will further weaken the Dems or the Republicans will earn even more seats in the near future so that their majority will become so lopsided that the Bill of Rights and many of our other freedoms might be at risk! It's hard to swallow but what’s done is done. The Democratic establishment has no one to blame but themselves for losing their way but what we need now is a dramatic reversal before it's too late. We can't go to them, they must come back to us.

Now that we are in President Obama’s final moments it’s natural to look back, reflect, take account of what was, what is and what could have been. I’m going to look back at Barack Obama as an incredibly historic but failed president, who could have been one of the greatest of all time but instead presided over the potential death of the Democratic Party as we know it and because he and they have failed us, we are looking into the teeth of the beast. 

The power of the dark side (12-28-16)

I could have been seriously hurt or worse today. This morning, I came downstairs to go to work. I went to the bike rack in front of the house and my bike wasn't the only one locked up. There was the yellow mongoose that I hadn't seen for weeks locked up on the other side of the rack. When I first moved into my apartment about 2 months ago, that yellow mongoose was locked up to the rack all the time, every night. I assumed it was someone who lived in my building. A few weeks ago it disappeared. I figured the person who owned it brought it inside due to the weather, same as I did a few weeks ago. When the weather improved at the end of last week and the snow started to melt away, I brought my bike out again and have been using it pretty much since Friday.

So I unlocked my bike but before I got on it to ride off I noticed something. The quick release handle to lock the back tire in place was open. I took a closer look and someone had nearly completely loosened my back tire. I say nearly because if they had loosened it completely the nuts and bolts would have fallen out/off. Also the back tire wasn’t in the fork on one side. Intense anger started coursing through me, someone sabotaged my bike! Were they hoping I would have just gotten on, tried to pedal and do a brutal faceplant? I was fortunate I noticed it was tampered with. Once I re-aligned the back tire and tightened it, I begin my ride to work. I was seething. If only I had caught the person doing it. I would have beat them to an inch of their life. How dare they!

I got about a half block down, barely able to focus on what I was doing when I looked down and my mouth hung open. The handle on my front tire was open and that tire was loosened too! And I’ve been riding for a half block on it! I stopped immediately. In my anger I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to check other parts of the bike before departing. Thankfully I hadn’t made and turns or sudden movements. I was just coasting that half block. Again, the tire was loosened but not all the way where the nuts would have fallen off. The person who did this knew something about bikes. I tightened the front tire, checked everything else on the bike and then finally made my way into work.

Although at first I thought it might have been one of the drunk people coming out of the bar next to my building late last night, the precision in which this was done makes me think the person who did this knows their way around a bike. They knew just how to sabotage it to make it less noticeable. They had a working knowledge of quick release bike tires. The anger had me throbbing. I would never do that to someone else, why would someone do that to me? Because my bike was there? Truth is… they wanted me to crash. They wanted me to get hurt. Now I BADLY want to know who did it.

I’m a loving person. There is a lot of light within me but much like the course of a day, there is also night. I have a dark side. I do my best to hide it, to suppress it, to keep the nights short but external forces pull it out from time to time. I am afraid of it. I’m afraid one day it will get completely loose. There is so much rage and anger inside of me for all those times I let people get away with rotten things. For all those times I had every right to be upset but I fought back the urge to lash out, explode, seek revenge or retribution and took the high road. It’s all stored within me. I’ve never forgotten a person who wronged me or whose injustice was never answered for. People say; you have to learn to let it go. If it were only that easy. Tell Batman to let it go. Tell an elephant to let it go. I remember emotion easier than anything else. I’ve been thinking about this, stewing about this all day. Why would someone want to sabotage my bike? If someone did this to another person’s car, it would be a felony wouldn’t it? Attempted assault! Who would have a motive to hurt me?

I’ve barely spoken to the people in my building and the nearby ones. As usual, I’m not friendly but I am nice. I’ve held doors for people; I’ve helped carry things for others. I’ve even redistributed the mail and given people theirs when the post office mixes it up. I don’t know and haven’t seen everyone in my building, just the 2 neighbors closest to me on my side of it. On the other side of the building are 3 more apartments, including apartment number 10. In case you didn’t read my post the other day, I had a problem with some neighbors blasting music that was almost at nightclub-like levels. I left an anonymous note outside their door mentioning how I thought the music was really loud and asked them to “please consider your neighbors”. I hand wrote the note and didn’t think anything of it. But outside of my apartment door I have something written on it. It didn’t occur to me until a few minutes ago that the handwriting would obviously match and I wrote both in cursive and both with the same black sharpie. If someone was wondering which neighbor wrote the note, it’s probably not a tough thing to figure out. So that makes me wonder, was this payback for the note? That’s kind of thin but I can’t think of anyone else who would want to sabotage my bike. I’ve never seen who lives in apartment 10 nor do I know who owns the yellow mongoose bike outside locked up next to mine. Is it a coincidence that someone with bike knowledge disabled my bike when a bike I hadn’t seen for a long time reappeared next to mine? Maybe it was a drunk from the bar. That, in fact might be the best case scenario. If someone who lives in my building is so petty that they tried to take me out like that, I don’t think I’ll be in that apartment too long.

I was going to bring my bike into the apartment tonight anyway because some snow is supposed to return tomorrow but man I can’t stop thinking about it. This isn’t good for my high blood pressure. This isn’t good to keep my darkness at bay. This just isn’t good. Most likely this person will get away with it and all I can do or say is feel fortunate that I caught everything before I crashed in traffic and was hurt or even killed. The world is a fucked up place. People seem worse than ever, at least in my lifetime. I try to keep my head down, never bother anyone, never hurt a soul, help when I can but I cannot expect the same from everyone else. I cannot expect people to treat me as I would treat them. I cannot reconcile this anger that is brewing… and my patience is running out.   

Lost souls can come home… (11-17-16)

I get caught up. It happens to me all the time. I get caught up in my own little world. I get caught up in the fun. I get caught up in the pain. Emotions can speak louder than words to me. Sometimes all I hear is the anger and not the words that provide the context. I hear the joy and not necessarily the reasons for it. I can’t help it. I’m often the last person to agree to go to the party and then if it’s good, I’m the last one to want to leave. My inner child hugs my heart. It’s always close by. When my “gold” comes out I’m transformed into the most loving, caring, sensitive soul. My analytical, introverted side wants to be left alone while that other part of me just wants to give love, embrace love and connect. For the past 2 plus weeks since I’ve been at my new apartment I’d say the sour puss side of me has been in control… more thinking than feeling. It was a little unusual but it was out of necessity really, I had to move; I had to do a lot of adulting in the past few weeks. There wasn’t any time to be sitting around feeling things. Stuff had to be done. So I did it. I somewhat closed off my fun, feeling side and went to work. I say somewhat because I find it’s impossible to completely close off one side or the other. When the youthful exuberance overcomes me, the frosted side if you will, the dry side is still there, still talking, still offering warnings, advice,  trying to be responsible and realistic, it’s just that the fun side is drowning it all out. I choose not to listen to what’s playing in the background when the music in the foreground is so sweet. Conversely when I’m being businesslike and structured I can hear the other side telling me to have fun, enjoy things and dream. It’s my belief that you can’t be one way or the other ALL the time. You just can’t.

My whole life I’ve been trying to reconcile the two… trying to find that balance consistently. Sometimes I can achieve it and it’s wonderful but often external factors cause the balance the shift. Okay, I realize that it’s not really external factors, it’s me. It’s how I react to the external factors that throw it off but you get what I’m saying. Something happens that I did not predict… something beyond my control that causes a chain of events to follow. On occasion it works out. Sometimes I have to do damage control or change plans on the fly to help make things okay. There have been instances where the stress and damage is too much and it costs me. I find that when I have that balance between the dry side and frosted side, it’s easier to tackle unforeseen events and problem solve. When the 2 sides of me are working together, we can get a lot done and we can handle the unexpected. When they’re not in sync, life gets harder and something is often missing.

Now I don’t know if it’s like this for you but when one part of me is running the show for extended periods the other part of me is still running in the background, like that app that’s still running on your cell phone and eating up battery when your phone isn’t technically on.  You don’t realize it’s running until you look at your phone later that day and see the battery is really low and you’ve barely used your phone! This is pretty much how I feel right now. While I was taking care of important business I wasn’t completely acknowledging the emotions that have accompanied everything the last few weeks.

“I ain’t got time to bleed” – Jesse Ventura, in the movie Predator (1987)

Well, now that all the important stuff is done (finding a place, agreeing on terms, packing, finding moving help, moving, changing addresses, unpacking and organizing) I do have time. And what I discovered last night and this morning when I started to listen to the emotional side of me was that I was really depressed. I had no idea but all the symptoms were there, weight gain, not wanting to be around anyone, excess fatigue and a feeling of loss. What I discovered during idle moments over the last 24 hours is that I still have a lot of adjusting to do. Now I’m bummed because of all the political stuff going back to last week and hey, maybe you are as well but there’s more to it than that. For the last 4+ years I’ve lived with another human and a few cats. Now I live completely alone. My human roommate and I, we didn’t hang out all the time or do loads of things together but I do miss her presence. It’s comforting to have another human that you trust and do not dislike nearby. There would be days where we wouldn’t chat at all but you really do get used to that other presence. Then of course there’s Bailey and Lana, my two former cat roommates. I miss them tons. They were such good friends to me and I tried to be as good a friend to them. Not a day would go by where I wouldn’t sit with one or both of them and have a casual conversation with them. As you may have guessed, I did most of the talking but Bailey would occasionally chime in with varying meows. During the time I lived with them, they were always there for me, something that I did not take for granted then nor do I now. But that doesn’t mean I’m not hurting a bit without their presence.

It seems silly to me a little that I still think about them quite a bit even though they are now about 3 weeks out of my life and 2 hours away. But I sit around and think about how they are, wishing I could give them scratches and hear them purr a little. I always enjoyed them and other than at sleepytime, I tried to never ignore or deny them attention or love. Now I know what you are thinking, why don’t you just get your own cat? If only it were that easy. I’m afraid finances are an issue there and I would never get a cat or dog with iffy finances. I don’t think that would be fair to them. I take the concept of adopting an animal incredibly seriously. Besides that, I’m not ready. If I got a cat tomorrow I wouldn’t be able to help comparing it to the 2 wonderful friends I’ve parted ways with that I had built a 50 month relationship with. That wouldn’t be fair to the new cat either.

Hopefully, somewhere down the road things will be different and I can adopt one but for now all I can do is be honest with myself and accept how I’m feeling. I feel lonely. I feel loss. I feel sad. Being so busy and having so many things to do helped to hide it for a while but man if you don’t acknowledge what you’re feeling, especially when it’s strong, it will find you and whoop you. This is always true for me, especially being so sensitive and feeling, but maybe it’s true for you too. Don’t deny your feelings. They’ll always find their way back, even if you are lost. And it doesn’t matter if you are the most lost soul in the world. Lost souls can still find themselves. Lost souls can come home. This lost soul is going back to an empty home with a heart full of love so eventually I’ll be okay but in the short term…

"Fight on, my men

I am hurt, but I am not slain;

I'll lay me down and bleed a while,

And then I'll rise and fight again."  -Sir Andrew Barton