Hollow Pursuits

Mom and I were sorting boxes today when I came across my wedding album. I was having a good day, but after that I had to sit down and rest a while. I just suddenly lost all my energy.

I'm glad I'm getting things done but I have no idea how to have fun anymore. Sometimes that helps me get things done. I figure if I can't think of anything I'm in the mood for, then I might as well do something I'm never in the mood for. But that policy only takes me so far. Sometimes I feel a wave of grief and suddenly all my energy's gone, like my batteries just suddenly fell out of the compartment.

It's going to take me a while to have fun again. When video games started having achievements and trophies, I really got into achievement hunting. But the hunting also sort of ruined video games for me. Now if I've already gotten all a game's achievements, I'm less likely to go back and play it again.

Tangent: You know, the above could probably be fixed. I think it would be cool if achievements also had a number beside them, indicating how many times you've popped that achievement. Then you'd have more reason to go back and do it all again. But I digress.

It's also harder for me to go back and play older games, the ones from the pre-achievement days. Playing them just feels like wasting my time. I mean, arguably video games are always a waste of time, but counter-arguably you're never wasting time if you're having fun. People need fun now and then, psychologically speaking.

Anyway, I've spent 30+ years training myself to have fun in relation to another human being. Having fun by myself feels like wasting time, in a way it didn't seem so before. Every time I laugh at a comedian on the TV, I look over to make sure KJ is having fun too. Which is why I'm glad my mom's here, but she won't be here forever. I have to learn how to have fun by myself again.

I touched on this in a previous blog, but I do wonder if this was fated to happen. You know I'm not religious, but I still kind of feel like things happen for a reason. People's lives do follow patterns. Fit it into your personal philosophy however you can, but sometimes life plays out like someone is writing it.

I think there is a reason I'm here, in a new state. It's just suspicious to me that KJ lived through more than a decade of failing health, only to pass away shortly after getting the house of her dreams. If she'd died before we moved, I wouldn't have moved. It's like the universe placed me here because it has a plan for me here. 

And then we got her a puppy. We couldn't really afford a puppy, and we didn't have a good plan for integrating it into our household. Normally we wouldn't have made a bad decision like that, but somehow we fell into it.

KJ had been wanting a puppy for years, but it just didn't fit into our lives. Maybe the universe knew KJ was about to die, and wanted her last week to be as happy as possible - a puppy, a new home, etc.

And if any of the above is true, then I also believe that I've been positioned here for a reason. I predict that sometime in the next few years, I'll have an opportunity. I don't know what kind. Financial? Maybe. Romantic? Doubtful. Maybe I'll just meet some new lifelong friends.

But whatever it is, it will be an opportunity that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't moved here. Perhaps it was in the cards all along, a plan put in motion from the moment I lost my job in Tennessee. Or maybe it's all just random.

But if it was by design, I'd really like to ask the universe: Was this really the only way? Really?

But darker thoughts have also occurred to me. KJ hadn't been to the doctor since December. Usually she went every three months, so we would have had an appointment in March. But she's always hated doctors, and she'd been putting off getting a new doctor here.

Maybe if we'd stuck to the schedule, the new doc would have found something. Probably not, but it's possible. So in a way, I blame my old employer for this sequence of events. If they hadn't eliminated my position, then we never would have moved, and she would have gone to the doctor in March, and we would have kept living in that cramped little house. We wouldn't have been as happy there, but we wouldn't know what we were missing, and maybe she would have lived. Maybe.

Anything's possible.

So yeah, as you can see, my thoughts are still all over the place. But I do think I'm getting better.