I wish you could read my mind. I wish there was a way for me to allow you full access to what goes on in my brain. So you could understand the euphoria that I experience when I’m looking into your eyes. To experience the dopamine rush that is released when you touch me. The way your voice tickles and excites my ears when you tell me that you love me. I can try to explain in words what you do to me and what I feel for you. I think I’d have an easier time counting until I ran out of numbers. It isn’t something that words can convey. It isn’t something that I can neatly wrap up, put in a box and tie it up with a bow to hand you. I liken it like someone trying to describe what a fine wine tastes like. I can tell you that is is “light bodied, herbaceous, and toasty, with hints of nut.”, or “full bodied, fruit forwarded, earthy, and supple.” There’s thousands of words that I could use to describe what a wine would taste like to you, but unless you experience everything all at once and taste it for yourself, you’ll never fully be able to grasp the complexity of what I’m trying to convey.

The love that I feel, through every fiber of my being, is more complex than any wine that exists. If there was one single wine, and I was able to break down every single aspect of it. If I were to break it down into the minutia of the molecules, and the atoms that make it up. Taking the time to look up all the scientific terms, and facts behind the why and the how, and reasonings behind why that wine tastes the way it does. It would look like a stick man drawing next to a Monet painting. I love you. With every atom in my body. From my nervous system, to my veins, through my bones, my sinews, there is not a single part of me, and what makes me be me that isn’t madly in love with you.

To some, that would be a frightening concept. To others, it might be overwhelming. To me…it’s the most natural feeling in the world. Like I’ve finally found what I’ve been missing my whole life. Like I was born simply to love you and only you. The peace I feel in your presence. The joy from your smile. The longing in your eyes. The comfort in your embrace as you quietly inhale my scent. The sweetness of your kiss. The bounce in your hair. The gleam in your eyes. The softness of your skin. All these impressions forever seared into my brain and my heart. You are enough.

I wish for the peace of mind that being able to read my mind would bring you. The assurance that all that I want is you. The understanding of what my past has done to me, the trauma and pain that I’ve felt. The let down and heartache, that binds me. The freedom that understanding could allow. For you to feel the peace and contentment in there amidst the clouds and turmoil.

I love you. Only you. I want nothing more than to spend every second, of everyday for the rest of time interacting with you.

I miss you. I want to come home.

Yet another year has passed (almost), and I’m afraid I’ve done a frightful job of posting. Life is busy. It’s mundane. It’s good though. Quiet.

The cancer treatment for my wife has gone phenomenally. Official diagnosis was on 5/5/22. Began chemo beginning of June. Finished chemo in November. Double mastectomy mid- December. All clear note given just before New Years. She is now just going through immunotherapy to rebuild her immune system from the chemo treatments, with reconstruction surgery scheduled for the one year anniversary of her diagnosis. Aside from hair loss, and fatigue, she’s had no major complications, illness, or even nausea. This really has been the best experience given the circumstances that she’s had. She continues to heal, physically. Mentally, she is doing well, but I think that recovery may take longer. She’s been out of work for 10 months and misses the comradery and friendship of her co-workers. She’s anxious to get back into it to say the least.

Me? How am I doing? I work a lot. I get up at 3:30 am everyday. Work doing things for my business. Leave the house at 6:30 am, work till…well usually about 6:30 pm then drive home to arrive between 7:15 pm - 7:30 pm. Couple hours with the kids, let the wife tell me about her day, and pass out between 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm. My schedule doesn’t allow a whole lot of down time. I’m behind in things that I need to do. Don’t have much time for things I want to do. I’m surviving, but it isn’t much of a life. I’m content as usual, but do feel a general lacking in life. I keep telling myself “You’re doing this now, while you can, to make it so that you don’t have to or need to when you’re older.” I’m 43. Not too young, but young enough to be able to survive on the 4-5 hours a night of sleep that I get.

They say no news, is good news. If that is in fact true, then the fact that I haven’t posted anything in almost three years must mean that life has been pretty good for me, right? Nothing to batch about, nothing to complain about. No news.

Life over the past couple years, i’m not going to lie, has been pretty good. Mundane, but good. My immediate family has survived the Covid-19 pandemic (if you want to call it that) unscathed. Very happy to have had the house during the lock downs that were imposed. I can’t imagine I’d have had much of a family left had we still been in the little apartment that were left behind. The house was big enough that no one was on top of one another, and while going a little stir crazy at times we survived it. I’m in an industry that for the most part was never shut down. Competitors laid people off and shut down, which drove all their work into my place of employment so while things were slowing down elsewhere, we got busier that ever before. I was at work everyday like nothing had changed. I’m thankful for that. It did get to a point were I couldn’t take the stress anymore and changed employers. In the grand scheme of things, at least for the foreseeable future was a very bad move on my part. I’ll get to the why in a bit.

I’ve also started a successful side business with another guy and his father. His father chipped in the operating expenses to cover us for a couple months, my main business partner quite his job to perform the main day to day business operations, while I spend my evenings covering the paperwork for the business, after spending about 12 hours a day away from home for my regular work. We’ve been operating for nine moths thus far, and business is good. I’m not going to lie.

So if all is so good, why am I here? What is going on that is making me take time out of my weekend to post? Well…aside from the simple fact that if I don’t post on here, this site is a waste of resources, and the want to be more diligent in posting.

Towards the end of February, my wife found a lump in one of her breasts. We weren't too concerned about it, after all she’s only 38 years old, no family history, doesn't drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t tick any of the boxes for what is perceived to be any contributing factors, but we decided it was something that we should have checked out.

It took a month for us to get in to see the doctor. During that month is when I changed jobs. I took a large pay cut in changing, but hey I’ve got the business to subsidize us and maintain our life style.

First doctors visit, the words we expected to hear were not uttered. The doctor couldn’t tell us that it wasn’t anything to worry about. Instead we were referred to another doctor to get a mammogram, and ultrasound, so another couple weeks go by. We go in, again hoping to hear, “Oh, it’s nothing to worry about, it looks like it’s just ……”. Again we are let down. We are then referred to another office to get a biopsy done. Two of them in fact as the imaging revealed there was a second area with a mass. The biopsies come back. Cancer. Both sites.

Had I stayed at the original job, with the business income, financially we would have been fine. Add in all the co-pays, deductibles, and prescriptions, financially we are going to hurt. Aside from the finances, I was a salaried employee, with a boss that didn’t throw a fit if I needed time off, which from the sound of things this journey is going to require.

Understandably, I’ve been asked by a lot of people how I’m doing. My unique marital situation allows for me to be at ease with the situation. Not i’m not trying to sound cold, indifferent, or straight up like an asshole, but the situation doesn’t affect my too much. I’m not the one dealing with cancer. I’m confident that she will recover. If I’m wrong, I lose a friend, but gain freedom. My kids will lose their mother, but they seem to come to more and rely on me more than they do from her anyways. It’ll be sad. We'll all be sad, life will change drastically, but we'll be able to move on.

So how am I really doing? Being completely honest about it, I'm jealous of her. The sad reality that I cannot express to anyone. For as long as I can remember, I’ve dealt with depression and wanting to die. Suicide isn’t an option. I’ve seen the devastating effects of it on families and friends. I cannot put the people that I care about through it, so I’ve stuck through it and “suffered" with it. My life isn’t bad, but when it isn’t what you want it’s still a struggle. My wife on the other hand, loves life, wants to live and yet out of the two of us she is the one stricken with the potentially deadly illness. She’s the one with the out that I would happily take on given the opportunity. Why her? Why not me?

I really wish I was more diligent in posting. Looking back, and wow it’s been ten months since I’ve posted. So what has been going on in my life you may wonder?

I got a dog. He is awesome, but can be spastic at times. He seems to suffer from anxiety, so in my own humble opinion he fits right into my family with mental illness.

A couple months later after getting a dog, we bought our first house. It’s great. Love home ownership and all the costs, fees, upkeep, and associations to deal with. In all honesty though it is really great to have a house and not be living in a tiny apartment. The change in scenery though for the dog only seemed to make the anxiety worse, so what do you do for an anxious dog? Get him an emotional support animal.

I found a dog in a local shelter that is quite similar in size, age and breed so now he has a friend to keep him company so he doesn’t get lonely during the day.

Back to the house. I consider myself a tech person so it has been fun turning the home into a smarthome. This has given me something to distract myself with so when things are turning downward for me I can focus on that instead.

I was also asked to help chaperone a group of high school students to Italy and Greece for ten days, so I have been able to get some world travel in under my belt. It was a great experience, and as cliche as it is to say, my favorite part of the trip was getting to see the changes in the kids. Granted one might say, “It was only ten days, how much could someone change in that amount of time?” Let me tell ya. More than you might think. Breakfast and dinner were provided but lunches were up to the individual. There were some that went crazy shopping in the beginning only to come up short towards the end of the trip and realize they needed to be a little more thrifty if they wanted to eat lunch. There was another one whose bank account got frozen due to something going on with his parents, so the group pulled together to make sure he got taken care of. Another student was charged $150 for her lunch and had to deal with the restaurant in getting her money back. There were a couple of parents that tagged along with their kid for the trip, one such father it seemed went out of his way to make sure he was next to his son every minute of every day and hindered the interactions with the other students to the point you could tell the son didn’t want his father there. Again toward the end, you saw him going out on his own and interacting with the other students so that he wasn’t forced into staying by his father’s side. There was one girl, who openly stated she had a lot of negative thoughts about the area that we live in, but after seeing a couple of other places around the world, she realized that what she had really wasn’t all that bad after all. One student spent $100 on a (in my own opinion hideous) gold chain and began to panic and worry what his parents were going to say about it, to which I coached him to tell them that it was something that would stick with him and help him remember the trip by. One girl had her phone stolen while walking around through a plaza on the second to the last day despite being told numerous times not to keep it in her back pockets. My favorite though had to be one girl, that made drama in everything. Things like “OMG, I lost my passport.” when she had it three minutes earlier or “There are too many people in here, I need to go outside.” or “Oh no my phone is almost dead.” after she had been staring at it for hours straight vs. paying attention to the world around her. I understand that there are many phobias and anxiety triggering things in the world, not knocking the validity of these, but it was a constant thing with her. One the last day of the trip she openly stated that she “Wasted the trip, and the experience”. As sad as it is for her to have missed out on so much of the experience, to have her realize it and state it out loud was a huge sign of growth on her part.

Personal growth is the key to everything. Good or bad, the experiences that we have each and everyday push us and shape us into the people that we are to become. Take it. Learn from it. Grow from it.

At some point between last night and this morning, perhaps in my dreams, I had the thought that life really is nothing without hope or faith, and that the end of those things is brought about by absolute knowledge.  If you absolutely know something is true, there is no refuting it, and thus it leaves nothing to hope for or have faith in.  For example: (I'm not saying this is a good one, but it will help to illustrate my point) If I were to be pulled over while driving to work.  I would have hope that I will just get a warning and be let go.  Once I see him (or her) writing out a ticket and I know that I am being cited, that absolute knowledge kills my hope.  On another note, I was just asked by a co-worker if I would like anything from McDonald's.  I have faith that that will result in me getting a bacon McGriddle giving me something to look forward to.  Once it is here (or isn't on the other hand) it won't require faith anymore as I have that absolute knowledge.

I've dreamed about Brittany twice recently.  Last night in the dream we happened to be in the same public space and she approached me saying "I'm finally ready." Given the context of our conversations while we were "together" I took this as meaning that she was ready to leave her husband, however it turns out she had not told him this just yet.  He was in the dream and I was there when she told him.  I was surprised that his reaction wasn't anger but sadness accompanied by pleading.  Once I was assured that anger and hostility wasn't going to be the way that the conversation went I walked away.  I went into their kitchen and started washing dishes, by hand to allow them some time and privacy.  I don't remember a whole lot more of the dream unfortunately.  The overall tone of the dream was dark and dingy. Nothing was well lit, most of the light seemed to be from neon lights or signs.  Picture a "futuristic" slum from an '80's movie.

Three other thoughts have come to me because of this dream.  First, I have an amazing feeling of sheer and utter contentment, which I am attributing to the dream.  I would wager that this same feeling accompanies my mornings every time that I dream about her, and makes me want to dream about her more often.  Second, while I have a near absolute knowledge that she and I will never actually be together as a couple, I can't imagine that somewhere deep inside my psyche there isn't a part of me that still holds onto a tiny spec of hope that we might be.  Third, is more of a question to myself than anything else.  What would I actually do should that ever happen?  I'd never be able to fully commit or trust myself in that relationship which wouldn't be fair to her, would I want to live with that doubt in the back of my mind?  Would I want to put my wife through me leaving again?  I absolutely hate hypothetical situations, because I don't believe that you can know what your emotions will actually make you do given a certain situation, so I don't even know why I would start going through all these scenarios, but such is the state of my mind.  All in all, I'm choosing to just enjoy the peace in my soul this morning.

I've been wanting to post for a while now, but find myself lacking the words to express how I feel, and without those I just find myself retreating into myself seeking an escape.

Two weeks ago as I'm driving to work I get a text message from my sister stating that my step mother has had a heart attack and is in the hospital, but is currently feeling better.  I decided to drive the hour out to the hospital to see her and see if there is anything that I can do for her.  My sisters, between the three of them had discussed making the trip out to see her as well, but wouldn't be able to until later in the day. I figured once another one of them got there I could head back to work.  

I spent the morning talking to her about various things of no great consequence.  The subject of her car came up around lunch time.  She had driven to an urgent care facility and once there was transported to the hospital via ambulance, so she was concerned as to how she would get back to her car once she was released.  I ended up taking an uber ride to pick it up for her then drove it back to the hospital.  

Once back at the hospital the direction of the conversation turned to my father, who passed away a couple months ago.  She brought up the fact that he had a small amount of money saved which she had used to cover funeral/burial costs for him.  I made the comment that I was surprised that he actually had any money saved. To which she responded that it wasn't actually a savings but rather some money from an accident that he was involved in a couple years ago in which he lost the use of his left arm. Commented back "Well at least something good came out of that accident.", which changed the mood of the conversation.

They did not have a happy marriage.  She said the first year of it was fine, but after that year he turned into an ugly person, not quite verbally abusive, but very condescending, not complimentary at all, and nothing was ever good enough for him, and for the better part of 19 years of their marriage he had never told her he loved her.  After the accident, in the hospital once he woke up he looked at her and the first words out of his mouth was "I love you."  The loss of the use of his arm caused him to require a great amount of care. Which was very hard on her physically, but his attitude had changed and so dramatically that she said the marriage had taken a 180 degree turn and she was actually happy.  For three years she cared for him and took care of him, and those were the best three years of their 22 year marriage together.  It really gave me a different perspective on their lives together.  All the things that she had done over the years that my sisters and I had faulted her for changed for me and seemed almost justified.

My sisters' didn't make it out that day, so I ended up spending the whole day there with her.  Not exactly how one would want to spend the day, but I really did gain a better understanding of her, and I'm glad that I did.

I drove home that night, not in a hurry but with a lot running across my brain.  I told my wife about my day once I got home, and during my recap, I was watching my 12 year old sun load the dishwasher, when he casually says to me "Sometimes I think about killing myself."  

I can't think of any words that could be harder for a parent to hear, and given my past, it was very real for me.  I asked him to come sit with me and talk to me a little about it.  Asking probing questions to find out how much thought he may have put into it.  We talked for about an hour, before he said he was tired and wanted to go to bed.  It was past his bedtime, so that wasn't out of the ordinary.  As soon as he walked out of the room I started to cry.

The world lost a great soul today.  Five months to the day of losing my brother, my Dad finally decided to join him in whatever afterlife there actually is.  It was a long day, watching and waiting in the hospital, but surrounded by my three sisters, and my wife it went well.  I decided to go home to sleep after being up for 22 hours, only to get the call moments after laying my head down on the pillow.  What would that one extra hour have done had I stayed there?  He was medicated, to the point that I am unaware if he was even aware of my presence there.  Could it have made a difference to him?  Did it?  We waited for 12 hours at the hospital with him, wanting him to find his peace and go, but it wasn't until we had all actually left that his time came.  Was he aware, and holding on not wanting us to witness his final moments?  Perhaps not, perhaps so, I won't ever know in this life.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to have daughters.  My three sisters and I each have two boys, and with me being the youngest in my family everyone was looking at me to have a daughter.  That didn't happen, nor I think will it, but my desire has not diminished.

The reasoning behind this isn't entirely unclear.  Society has adopted this idea of special bonds between a mother and son, and a father and daughter.  That bond shows through in many places through life even.  Songs such as "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle give the premise of what I'm attempting to relay.  The idea of having a daughter look up to me knowing that I'd be (not only being) the one man that would never hurt her.  Who would always protect her.  Who would always have the right answer.  Who would and could do anything for her.

My own wife ascribes to this notion.  She might not notice or see it herself, but there has been a couple times throughout our marriage where we would be discussing something and her first thought of action would be to call her father to ask him to help with or do something that I myself am completely capable of.

In TV shows it is often portrayed when a marriage is happening and there is the excitement of the father walking his daughter, his angel, down the isle.  

I once dated a girl whose father said that he never thought he could love anyone more than her mother, until the day she was born.

There are mother/son activities at my boys' school that my family participates in, and I'm sure there are father/daughter activities as well, but as I've no occasion to go I do not hear of them.

My sons never been "momma's boys".  Even as babies or toddlers I was the one that got up in the middle of the night, or that they came to when they had a bad dream so I guess in a way my wife doesn't get the same experiences, but I'm not sure that misses it the way I do.

Odd as it may sound, this is all brought upon by an advertising email I received a short time ago from Chili's restaurants.  I was driving home from work one evening when it came through, (yes I am guilty of texting/emailing while driving), the email was advertising a father/daughter deal at their establishment and it hit me, squarely, solidly, and hard.  Circumstances around which my sons were conceived have, in the past, been subject to suspect in that to some, the timing seemed to coincide with "rocky" points between she and I, and more than one person has voiced the opinion that they were in fact deliberate.  Not that I necessarily believe this notion, but have enough room to doubt I told my wife that if she got pregnant again, that I would leave her.  Not that this is compounding my dilemma of wanting a daughter, but getting back to that point I do really want a daughter.  I really, really do.  The dilemma is that I don't want one with my wife.  As much as I don't want to go through sleepless nights and changing diapers again, I honestly am more than willing to do so and I can picture it happening, with someone else.  I'm not saying that I'm going to, don't get me wrong. Only voicing what holds heavy on my heart.

Whirlwind.

The last three months of last year gone, and now I'm starting the third month of this year.  It truly has been a whirlwind of sorts.

My Mom lives out of state, with my brother and step father.  On average I've seen them for a few hours at a time, once a year.  My boys haven't really had any time to get to know them at all, and while my step father is a cool guy, having only met him a handful of times he isn't high on my list of priorities.  My brother, bless his heart, is pretty awesome.  He is also mentally handicapped, but has a heart of gold.  I decided that my family would go visit them for Thanksgiving and spearheaded an effort to get my sisters out to visit as well.

Rewind back to last Oct.  Around the 19th of the month I get a call from my Mom.  My step dad is having some issues and there is a blockage in his colon.  They are going to be operating to remove the blockage a couple of days later.  Come the 24th, I hadn't heard news so I called my Mom to find out how things went.  Surgery went well however, bad news is they discovered advanced stage 4 cancer was the cause.  I don't know that anyone could ever really be prepared for such news.  My Mom's world just got rocked, and not in a good way. They hadn't really had time to process things, the shock still fresh in their mind, but they are attempting to be positive.

Two days later, while I was at work I get a call from my Mom in the middle of the day.  This being out of character for her I answer the phone.  I've never heard such pain in my Mother's voice before.  My brother, with his heart of gold always looking for a way to help people, had gone out with a neighbor to help cut down some trees to use for firewood to get them through the winter months.  During this act of service, a tree that was being cut down had fallen on, and killed my brother.

I left work, packed the family up and headed out to be with my Mom and step dad.  The trip was long, the time spent there was short, and the knowledge that I would be going back a couple weeks later for Thanksgiving was comforting.  The plan was to head back out on Nov. 17th and stay 9 days through the holiday.  

While on my way to work on the 16th, my sister who had opted to stay with my Mom called me.  My step dad passed on earlier that morning.

Timing can be everything.

The pattern of my sadness or depression starting around the beginning of October and carrying on through the holiday season hasn't happened as expected the last two years.  Perhaps I was foolish to think that it was gone.  Perhaps after so many years I had learned to guard myself or rather prepare for it in hopes of lessening the impact of it.  Perhaps I just let my guard down this year.  I don't know, and never will for sure, but it is right on track this year.  

My father who is in his 80's has had a rough couple of years, which seemingly started (surprise surprise) in October two years ago with a pretty bad car accident which caused the loss of use of his left arm.  He was in the hospital for just over a month from it and was finally released just after Thanksgiving, to a rehab center.  A week later he was found in said rehab center unresponsive and sent back to the hospital and underwent heart surgery to place a stint to relieve a blockage which had caused a heart attack.  A couple weeks after that he went back into the hospital for yet another heart attack.  Since that time he has been back in the hospital three more times for various reasons, and was released yesterday back to another rehab center.  All the surgeries and treatments undergone have left him unable to care for himself.  He cannot get out of bed, or stand up out of a chair by himself.  He cannot go to the bathroom by himself.  I've watched this man who has been active and working his whole life deteriorate.  He can hardly see or hear.  

My step-mother who has been taking care of him had a death in the family on her side this past week, and she had to go out of town.  One of my sisters agreed to take him in for this period and stated that she is overwhelmed by the amount of care and attention that he is requiring of her.  In a way, I guess it is fortunate (for her at least) that he ended up needing to go to the hospital for a few days again.  She has been diligent in visiting him everyday, and at one point in their conversation he told her, that "He is holding on for us kids."  An extremely sweet sentiment to be sure, no doubt, but at what point does it become selfishness?  Hearing my sisters account of the care she is giving him showed us that we are not equipped, nor prepared to take care of him and yet he is holding on "for us", but while doing so is more work than good.

I can't imagine his quality of life being very good at this point.  I don't want to live to that point, to where my kids or anyone for that matter has to help me go to the bathroom and clean me up afterwards.  I don't want to be that burden on anyone even if it is someone whose profession it is to do so.  I "joke" that if I'm ever getting to that point I'll put myself down so no one else has to deal with it.  Given the circumstances I started wondering if at some point is it easier on family for someone to take their own life? Or would taking my own life at that point in life have the same effect on those around me, my kids most importantly, as it would if I were to do it today.  If so, what is the point of sticking around?  Do I do it sooner rather than later and give them more time to deal with it and adjust or do I wait till that point and devastate them and potentially their future families as well.