End of 2015

I must admit that I have been suicidal for the past few months. I don't like it, but I have been in what feels like s never ending struggle since October. Fortunately, I have been able to keep those thoughts at bay, but it is becoming increasingly more difficult. I wish there was something I could do to make it stop. 

Pastoral

We are all descended from pastoral people at some point in our family lineage. Over time, small bands of migratory people grew and settled down. Those settlements sparked further growth, which created systems of economics, theology, and governance that helped ensure a nominal level of security for their inhabitants. Naturally, more and more people wanted that stability, so those settlement turned to townships, then cities, and eventually into the megalopolises we have today, which puts humanity into a precarious position because if we are not careful our cities will become the cancerous tumors that ultimately consume our planet until everything we have have built becomes its own destroyer. 

For Woody

Our dog, Woody, died on Friday, December 11, 2015 at around 7:10 pm. Our hearts are still sad many days afterward. It was terrible to see our happy dog become so incapacitated in his last days, and especially during the last day. The look in his eyes told me that he knew that he was done. Both Denise and I took time to lay with him while he was still cognizant of the world. After his body became to finally give out, I sat down and stroked his body and spoke to him quietly. He eventually took his last breath. His body twitched twice as life left him. 

I couldn't bear to have the vet put him down, so I brought him home so that he could spend his last day with his family. I know that it was traumatic for our entire family, but after spending nearly 14 years together, I felt that he needed to go at home with the family who loved him so much. 

I will never look at that spot in the hallway the same ever again. That is where his ghost will always remain. 

Taking his limp body to the vet hospital to be cremated was one of the most difficult and emotional drives Woody and I have ever taken together. Once inside of the room, I just sat there talking to him and cried. It is no simple task to leave those who we love. It is no simple task to walk away from a body that meant so much, regardless of its lifeless state. 

There seems to an eerie silence around our house these days. There is no more barking in the morning for food. There is no more being enthusiastically greeted at the door upon returning home. His companion, CeCe, still wanders the house looking for him. She waits at the door for him to come home from the vet, but it is only us who walk through the door. 

This year Christmas is a little bit sadder than it has been in a long time. 

Goodbye Woody. 

Wherever you are, may the fields be green and wide open. May your dish always be full. May someone who loves you scratch your belly. May you have someone to love in our absence. May your tail wag forever after. 

Useful just useful

Sometimes I feel that no one really loves me I only feel that I'm useful. I feel that they are nominally nice to me as long as they get what they want. As long as I do with they want for that. In essence, but I am useful. There is a difference and I feel it. That is how I feel today. That makes melike I want to put a bullet in. My my head

Some days

Some days (and nights) it takes every ounce of strength and common sense to stop me from running a razor across my wrists or putting a bullet in my head. I hate that I feel this way, but it is something I cannot control. I cannot simply make those feelings disappear. I have been fighting them off since I was a child of five or six years old. You would think that I have gotten good at beating it back by now, but those thoughts are just as sneaky as I am strong. On certain days, it almost feels like I have met my match.