finding the way.
I don’t know who I’m apologizing to, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I haven’t written here for over a month. I guess I’m apologizing to anyone who stumbles upon this site by accident (i.e. no one), but… it just feels kind of bad to face such neglect. When I started this, I was so excited to have a public outlet to write about any dumb thing that was stuck in my brain, and then I just… didn’t.
Perhaps the problem is that as much as I want to pretend like this is just some stupid blog that I don’t care about, I also want my posts here to be somehow good or worthwhile, and that leads to me being too precious about writing. That’s stupid. Pressing down the keys and making the words appear is like 90% of the battle anyway. So, to hell with it, I’m not dead, FYI, and here’s some random stuff that I thought about tonight.
I went on a walk by myself this evening. Nice weather for the middle of winter, except that it has been extremely windy all day. I’ll take the wind if it comes with clear skies, anything to rid us of the endless gray. I really can’t say why I keep going on these walks. Refusing to let go, I guess.
[Another reason I’ve written less than I hoped was that I feared making entry after entry about the same basic thing. As I wrote in the very first post here, this blog was largely borne out of loss, and the feelings that are still conjured up by that loss tend to be the ones that stick out when I think about what to write.
Further apologies, then, but I’m going to indulge in those feelings now. This post is very similar to the previous post, but oh well. It’s easier to just directly address the subject of that loss, so:]
As the same shoes I wore when you were still here pounded the same pavement, I realized I really didn’t know where to go. I had just decided on “a walk” without really thinking about what that entailed. Not that it’s the first time I’ve gone by myself since you left. But most times I have some kind of goal in mind. Usually exercise-related, I want to get my daily steps or burn a certain amount of calories or something like that.
Today, though, I had already exercised plenty. There really was no other reason to go on a walk other than to be outside for a while, to remember you and to hang onto the habits we had.
Where to go, though? As soon as the question crossed my mind, it was soon followed by a thought of how this was rarely a problem I grappled with when you were here. You always led the way.
I kept looking up at the sky. There were a handful of stars, those few celestial objects with enough luminosity to dare still shine in defiance of the urban light pollution. Thinking maybe you could give me an answer. Maybe you did. After all, my feet did find a way, I did tread a path.
At least the park was quiet as I traced various sidewalks that we knew. I kept staring up. I like the stars. And I won’t lie, I also hoped that any passersby might not see the tears on my cheeks if I kept my head tilted completely upward.
In the past, the only times when I felt like I had to lead the way were when I needed to curtail a walk, make it shorter. I now feel a twinge of guilt, of course. What I wouldn’t give to have an endless walk with you. It’s silly, I know when big changes come to pass, we can’t go back and nitpick every moment that came before. It’s too easy to find regrets. Life was, and is, what it is.
On a night like tonight, though, I think I would’ve been more than content to roam with you. I found the way, and made it back home eventually. It is now 2025. I can say, “it happened last year” now. Time keeps passing. I wonder if the these feelings really do ever dull, I doubt they can truly go away. I wonder if everyone else feels this way, if everyone else who has ever dealt with loss is carrying around these wounds and we all just pretend and put on happy faces as best as we can when we interact with the world.
I put the locket on the hook. Tonight was a nice night.