It has been a stressful weekend unfortunately. I hope yours was better than mine. I will warn those of you who don’t like to hear about the trials of my life to jump past this next part because I am going to set down some important things for a future me, or future people who come after me. The regular blog will resume after this next section.

My paternal Aunt Debbie passed away after a battle with cancer. As all final battles with cancer end it was a draw. She took the cancer down with her in an ultimate act of defiance. I am not going to pretend that I was close to her, but she was a significant part of my childhood. She always welcomed me into her home with open arms and treated me as she might one of her own children. She was a god fearing woman and gave of herself as commanded by scripture in a sincere way. True people of faith are not performative. They live by the word and don’t make a fuss. I respect sincere faith. The last time I spoke with her was at the funeral of my maternal grandmother. In some ways I am fortunate in that my final memory of her will be a version before cancer when she was largely unchanged from the person she was when I was young. Of course I had no expectation that, that meeting would be our last. I have not spoken to any of my paternal cousins in over a decade at least. I doubt that I have anything to offer that would improve their lives. I have no sage advice about death that their own faith does not already provide. That said, I still shed tears for her, and them, in spite of not being part of their lives in recent times. I am not sure what I could offer now that wouldn’t seem hollow. Perhaps I’m overthinking it. Since I use social media as a tool for my profession I have stopped using it for its “intended” purpose. The part I play on social media isn’t exactly the real person I am. Do they understand that? Who can say? Perhaps I will simply write a note and send each of them one. It’s not much, but I do want them to know that their grief is shared even if I’m not the first person they would want to be sharing anything with…

Alright, back to the stuff that won’t get me passive aggressive, or regular aggressive, comments about how I’m not supposed to share my emotional burdens with random people on the internet. What a shithole the internet is sometimes. I will say that the above wasn’t the sole thing that injected stress into my life but I will save the other matters for another time. There are some things I can’t bring myself to put down in actual words in this space at this time. No one needs to tell me that I am not special in my grief, struggles, or anything else. More than most I understand the insignificance of a single life precisely because I use the internet as the vehicle of my trade. Innumerable people exist on this technological abomination that are trying to do the same thing that I am functionally; which is vying for attention. Trying to stand out in the ocean on humanity makes one keenly aware of how little of the human experience is special in any meaningful way. In fact, the unifying nature of the human condition is what most content banks on. I think it’s pretty clear that I get annoyed when people tell me I’m not special when I absolutely make it clear that I know I am not. Although I suspect the reason they feel the need to point it out is that they are angry that I am getting more attention than they are, while not being any more special than them. Sometimes people just need someone to hate.

Anyway, time is a luxury I don’t have right now, so I’ll leave you to your fate for the time being. I hope your week is a pleasant one and that I can contribute to that outcome in some small way. I will return on Wednesday to try and do the same yet again. Until that time remember to hold the rest button when powering off your game.

3006 Maybe A Little Question.

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