As much as I labor towards it. Today is not turning out to be a very good day in my life. Several different factors are effecting things. And they are all things that are beyond my ability to control.
My fifteen year old nephew began having petit mal seizures about two months ago. He would have several a day and they were not really anything frightening at all. He would simply daze off for a moment.
We, as a family, actually made light of it. Not to be mean. Rather to try and make him feel better about what was happening.
Early Thursday morning my brother-in-law awoke to loud sounds. When he went to investigate he found my nephew on the floor, paper white, blue lipped, and convulsing violently.
The seizure lasted more than ten minutes AFTER my brother-in-law became aware of it. There is no way of knowing how long it went on before it had forced my nephew to physically fall out of bed.
That, in and of itself, would be enough to weigh upon me. But there is so much more going on than just that.
A few people, in a lounge I spend time in, here, on Fubar, know bits and pieces about my friend Kathleen. The Kathleen situation is a very difficult thing to explain to people. It seems to be a very non traditional arrangement that she and I have.
Kathleen and I dated years ago and broke up. To be perfectly honest, I left her for another woman. This was not as cold an act as it sounds like, within the limitations of a blog. She and I were both ready to be done when it ended. Very ready. I just happened to click with somebody else a month or two before I would have liked to have done so.
I left Kathleen for Janna. The woman in my profile pics, here. The woman who shredded my heart and soul.
For the three years I was with Janna, Kathleen hated me. I tried, many, many times to apologize. I tried to reason with her. I tried to salvage a friendship.
All to no avail. If I sent ten friendly text messages to her, I would, eventually get one very angry text in return.
For three years.
Then Janna threw me out. There was no real warning (Though in hindsight I realize there were many warnings that I didn't allow myself to see), and I was left, instantly, homeless and without possessions. I had my car, a couple of days worth of clothing, and an ex who had already moved her new boyfriend into my house.
To this day I have not gotten back all of my possessions. She kept everything that her, now, husband "liked".
In the Fu world it is easy to say "If that were me I would have....". But the truth is that anything I might have done would have looked, to the police, like I was the jealous ex, trying to stir the pot. And my ex made it very clear that the police would be called if I so much as glanced at her new, 24 year old man in the wrong tone.
I honestly could have broken this kid in half. No bragging. I just would have owned him in an altercation.
It wasn't worth it.
Anyway, in the midst of this, suddenly, there is Kathleen. Out of the blue she shows up and begins to pick up the broken pieces of "me". She got me into therapy, onto depression medication, and kept me alive when I probably would not have done so if left to my own devices. It is a bit of an exaggeration to say that she spoon fed me. But not much of one.
Seven months have passed, give or take a few days, since that night that Janna threw me out. And for that entire time Kathleen has been my only real emotional support. She's even paid bills for me when I couldn't keep my own shit together.
I owe her so much.
Until the last week or two Kathleen stayed at my house almost all day every day. She slept here, in my bed. I know people would mock that a man and a woman could sleep in a bed and remain plutonic. But, with a couple of drunken exceptions, we did. We weren't really friends, in the truest definition of the word. We were more than that, but less than lovers.
Well, Kathleen has met a guy, and I am thrilled for her. I am very happy for her. But now I find, yet again, another gaping hole in my life. I never really made it to "alone" after Janna.
I am there now.
This is not a desperational state I am in. I don't really have to be alone, to such a degree. I have a few friends who I could visit with. But, as can happen after break-ups, they all seem to tie back into my ex somehow. So I avoid them.
I could be sexually active, without much effort. But that seems like an empty proposition to me these days. The idea of sex without something else to go along with it just isn't enticing.
For the sake of honesty, though, I will admit that, even with my lofty ideas about wanting more, if I were to get a few drinks into me, and the right woman, or kind of woman, happened by, I would prove my hypocrisy and would take seven months of celibacy out on the poor woman.
At any rate...
Sometimes, in life, we come to crossroads where the avenues are clearly labeled, and we can see all the way into the horizon. We know where we are.
But, other times, we find ourselves at divergences where there are no signs, and visibility is nil. All we have to rely upon, in these places, is our internal compass... Gut instinct.
The last time I listened to my gut, it got my soul torn into confetti.
I've lost faith in my instincts. Yet I still stand here, with several paths before me, having to pick one to walk down.
So much rides upon this. And yet, the whispers I hear, from every road, seem to sound a lot like the Devil laughing.
