A lot of greatly disheartening events unfolded this past year:
-a marriage destined for failure turned into daily catastrophes
-I haven't seen my son since April
-I lost a great apartment
-I lost a great job that had potential for a decent future
-my car, the last thing my father ever gave me, has been
sitting incapacitated in my driveway for months
-my father passed away in the early morning of his 60th
birthday
-my grandfather passed away 3 days after my father
A lot of encouraging things have happened:
-my estranged spouse removed herself from the picture,
allowing the most amazing person, Audrey, in my life
-I stumbled upon an amazing job opportunity with a good
friend of mine, apprenticing as a luthier and working in the
most unique guitar shop I've ever been in
-I rekindled my affair with music in a few ways:
-the aforementioned guitar shop
-I rejoined a great band I left when I moved to Pittsburgh
-I joined another band with some longtime friends, the first
band I've ever played drums in
-my personal music has flourished and has inspired a few
more projects, still in the works
I look forward to this next year with great anticipation. I can't wait to see what's in store for me in the coming months. However, in the present time, I feel as if I've been in shock, and as it wears off, I'm becoming increasingly aware of just how devastating much of the last year has been. I know I have many things to be grateful for and I don't take any of it for granted. But I just can't get my spirit out of the dumps. At times I feel more alive than I've ever felt, but the rest of the time I just don't feel even remotely like myself. I find myself completely blanking on the task at hand, reliving memories in daydreams that play out like nightmares. Certain songs, movies, websites, and other random, trivial things instantly transport me to old feelings that manifest themselves with the strength that they appeared months, or even years ago, as if somehow I'd been dropped directly back into the moments from which they came. I have cold, hard awakenings that my father really is gone. Something will strike me as a subject he would find funny or intriguing and I want to pick up the phone to call him, but he's not going to answer. Daily trials and tribulations conjure up questions I know he would have the answer for or the path to the solution, but he can't respond to my inquiries anymore. I find myself falling into lulls, becoming emotionally unresponsive and unable to snap out of it for hours or days. The lulls hardly ever start from specific events or thoughts, they just.. happen. For the most part, I see myself having a generally upbeat persona, but honestly, at least 1 out of 3 smiles is false. I've even noticed myself in auto-smile mode, carrying myself in an 'everything's OK' manner, but everything on the inside just goes numb.
I can keep rambling on, but I'm done. You get the picture.
