I was unafraid I was a boy it was a tender age

 

 Serrano pepper martini from Lucky, a class act bar down in my own old stomping grounds of Roanoke. I just wanted a regular gin martini, but that was as close as we got, and I always wanted to try Hendricks gin. Being back in the New River valley under a snowfall reminded me of working at Hollins teaching a bunch of bored college girls, during what I'd come to remember as a very stressful, sad period of my life: a time I felt very lost and alone. These parallels and patterns. 

 

I feel like I need to realtalk with myself. This blog is getting too sad. Looking back over my entries for 2015, it seems a litany of helpless flailing. I have a hard time articulating things sometimes, and so it comes out a vague mess. My confessional runaway truck ramps are closed for maintenance. I was talking to a friend this week, and he mentioned how difficult it is to just say "I am having a hard time." let alone the darker and infinitely more pitiful "I need help" or say "uncle."  But what I really want to say is nothing on the topic. Vulnerability is such a drag.

 

I am really missing the positivity point, and this is shaping up to be an awful year. The last time I felt like this, I medicated myself into a robot. But last time, I was sick. A bad thing happened to me, and physically, I was dealing with it, in addition to whatever mental stuff. This time, I feel like I'm just paying attention, and I should figure my shit out. Some large part of it---like the grief about family stuff--I can't just wish away or forget. If this is my 2015, I should own it and make policies about getting through the week.

 

So tonight, as Sitting Bull's Lakota fightsong went:

Comrades, whoever runs away,
He is a woman, they say;
Therefore, through many trials,

My life is short!