Today Is December 30, 2017

Here we go again.

Last weekend of the year. I get introspective. New year. My birthday. It is a blessing and a curse.

I decided to start writing today because I have a lot on my mind.

I am usually selfish at this time of year. Whining about what I don't have, what I should have, what I didn't do, what I should do.

Despite my words, despite my inspirations, despite my intentions, I have not made a lot of progress.

This year my mind is all twisted up in the harsh reality and unpredictability, the fucking fragility of life.

Strange doin's, yesterday. I was at work. By 1:30 I was the only one left in the box office. By 3:00 I was the only human being in the entire building. I was there until 6:00.

The phone wasn't ringing, nobody was walking in the door. I took a couple of breaks to walk around the place. It really is a historic and amazing building. Just the people who have performed there will blow your mind.

Willie Nelson, Jackson Brown, Bonnie Raitt, John Prine, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, George Jones - fucking unbelievable.

I needed something to hang on to. I got in front of my computer, got into a poetry website that has an amazing database of poets and poems - and I spent hours reading poetry.

I am a man of words. A man who worships words. And I am feeling so empty. So hurt. I really do need something to hang on to as 2018 comes crashing in. Inspiration. I need it.

I need a reason to believe that 2018 will be a good year. A more solid reason than just "I want us to be happy."

I am going to do everything in my power to make our life better. To love my wife. To fight back against life. I am not just full of shit this time.

I can't do it alone. I know this. I know this from a lifetime of disappointment. I am searching for a poet or a philosophy or a mantra that can prop me up when I begin to sag under the weight.

I am watching Carol continue to struggle. Every day, every fucking day she has a hurdle to clear.

A problem with one of her eyes developed right around the time she got sick. Severe dry eye and it drives her crazy. She struggles with a clear eye patch that she puts on when she needs it but it is awkward. Her eye frustrates the hell out of her.

She bounces back and forth between contacts and eye glasses, depending on what her eye is doing to her.

Her facial muscles have not come back as much as we would like. Her face sags, her speech is slurred.

She suddenly has high blood pressure, which it has taken three weeks to finally get under control, with two medications.

She cannot just get up and have a good day.

It breaks my heart every single day. Not one fucking day goes by without me shedding a few tears, although I have learned to hide that from her.

2018 is not all about me. It is all about me doing everything in my power to make our life better.

I am semi-retired. The only reason we can afford that is because Carol is still working full time.

Didn't seem like a crime two years ago. Now it makes me feel like a piece of shit.

Watching her walk out of the house in zero degree cold, tip toeing through the snow to get to her car to get to work - breaks me. I always watch her walk to her car because I cannot feel comfortable until I see her safely inside it.

That is the moment every day when the most tears are shed.

I am searching for something different this year. For me. For us. Not sure what that will be.

I had three hours alone in a historic building yesterday to think it over. I was surrounded by history; pictures on the walls. Pictures of people who make their way through the world expressing their emotions. People who connect with millions of others because their emotions are honest and are in sync with the raw emotions that come with life's struggles.

People who understand empathy; people who ooze empathy.

I had quiet. I had poets. I had the life that I have already spent to think about, and the life that still lies ahead of me too.

I had Carol on my mind. If her troubles cannot wake me up then I deserve whatever punishment may come my way.