It's been 10 years since my last post. A lot has happened on the journey...
In no particular order: I got married, had 3 kids, retired the Altima, bought a Sentra, retired the Sentra, bought a Rogue, painted walls, broke a CV axle, planned to move but never did, assembled furniture, assembled toys, assembled puzzles, assembled playgrounds, went to playgrounds, did yoga, bought stuff, put away stuff, tossed out stuff, moved furniture, doom scrolled the pandemic, enjoyed the lockdowns, dragged Chelsea to get vaccine, built a career in law, left my law career, buried my Mom, graduated college, began an IT career, changed insurance companies, lost touch with friends, made new friends to lose touch with, changed wallets, conducted interviews, battled depression, switched to Android, doom scrolled the war in Ukraine, expanded my music library, expanded my game library, bought a couple of books, got a dog, got a cat, ate pie, lost weight, gained weight, quit social media, grew some gray hairs, lost hair in spots, got some Reddit karma, got really into crosswords... I'm sure I left some stuff out, but overall life just... went on.
I started this blog to try and document my life as it was happening. A type of "web log," if you will. Sure, most of it, if not all of it... okay, all of it is cringe. But those snapshots of my day-to-day were my emotions painted out for the world to see in glorious simplified English. They were real. They were the mental building blocks of how I got to where I am now.
And then I stopped writing.
I didn't want to share anymore.
I internalized all of it.
Because at the end of the day I realized, "Nobody really gives a shit."
Including myself.
I was tired of dishing out the same old, hum drum, woe is me dribble that I had been spouting out from my finger tips for the last decade before. It was a negative re-enforcing loop that needed to be broken. So I broke it.
That's not to say I don't have drafts laying under the carpet for no one to see. I had the heavy, verge of mental crisis pop-offs scattered about... but so does everyone. And I dealt with mine the best I could without releasing that negativity out like a teenage cry for help. After penning angst to paper, I worked through it.
So why now? Why post again after all these years?
Bella, my wife's cat, made me do it.
See, today was a particularly hard day. Woke up late. Had the busiest day I've ever had at the office. Forgot to put on deodorant. Came home, fought a little bit with my oldest son. Wife not feeling well again. Five-year-old not listening. Baby coughing. In-laws wasting money and stirring up avoidable drama. Just an overall hard 5 out of 10.
When everyone went to bed and I was putting away the kids' iPads, Bella jumped beside me on the couch and snuggled. I want to say it's been a really long time since she's done that with me. I was not expecting this kind of attention from her; she's nick named "Demon Cat" for a reason. The scenario as a whole took me aback. I just stopped what I was doing to pet her for half an hour before working on the rest of my nightly chores.
Two weeks ago, on a Thursday, I was outside of work just enjoying the cool spring breeze and watching the Spanish moss sway northward. I thought about writing about it. The Saturday after that I wanted to talk about my daughter just watching our lemongrass do the same swaying with the pure amazement that only babies have. Then there was the following Monday with my second son beaming his smile at me in the dark. I was proud to be a father. Bella tonight was final straw. It was the simple wins in life like this that pulled me through life. A smile, a gesture, a funny situation, a fortunate circumstance. These are the things worth noting. So thanks, Bella, for reminding me to write. Also, no thanks for biting the shit out of my hand...
So here I am again. Posts will definitely not be this long, but I do want to jot down the little things. Here's to another decade on the masked transit of life.