Another year down. Another year without a first kiss, another year withou---yeah. I think by now you get the picture.

But with it being another year down, and another year without all that, even still I feel...good. Not excellent...but not fucking dreadful either like I typically feel this time of year. So why is that, is it... Games? Is it Movies? Is it Pets? Is it Work? Is it Family? Perhaps a bit of each!

Or maybe, maybe it's the half hour of 10,000 Lux Sunlight I've been soaking up each morning lately. That's right folks, I've bought into the hippy-dippy voodoo spiritual cockamamey bullshit I mocked for oh so long. It took a lot for get me to the point where I would try such desperate measures to try getting well. But life, that tricky bitch whittled away at me until I became just that desperate. And long story short, IT WORKS!!! Games, Movies, Books, Music, Internet, Food, Money, Shopping: I've tried fitting anything and everything into that empty hole in me but nothing stuck, until that last resort therapy lamp, FUCKING THERAPY LAMP did the trick!

                                   1.)  I want this dog/cat. I want to live with him/her I want to sleep with him/her, I want him/her to be in my family. But they can't. I already have three dogs and two cats and realistically can't and shouldn't have anymore. And then I will get very depressed.

                                   2.)  I think about how I am helping this animal. And then... I look at that animal and think about the millions of animals just like that animal that there is, will be, and has been, except ones that I or people like me didn't get to help. I think of all of their deaths, abuses, rapes, and many other things that happens and will happen and has happened to the millions of animals. And then I get very depressed. And suicidal.

And that's why I don't help at shelters. Believe me, I know this is a fucked up and selfish way to think but it's just the way I think and I can't change it.
Work...

Working retail has really given me the opportunity to interact with all types of people, types of people I would normally never talk to. When I was in 5th grade I had a "First Grade Buddy," a first grader to whom I was to be a mentor of sorts. At that point in my life I had only ever experienced being the youngest of all of my family, and I remember it felt really good to play that older role for once. And now at my retail job I get to interact with dozens of kids every day. When my Grandma was alive at one point she was living in a retirement home, and I would love to go there and just hang out with my Grandma and mingle with all the old folks, hearing from all of their experiences. At my retail job, I get to do this to some degree with the older customers, something I've missed since my Grandma passed. So yeah, it feels great being able to get to do these interactions with different types of people on a regular basis, an opportunity I didn't have until I got this job.

So anyway, this job has given me great opportunities. But it's also really hard to give up the college life and get out of that college mindset. I was initially planning on going back to college, but the more I work this job the more I feel I might be content there and want to stay their indefinitely. I think it's obvious I was in love with the college lifestyle, I was in it for 6+ years for cripes sakes but now I'm kind of thinking it's time to give it up. Kind of. Half of me looks at it like that, sees the potential and the positive. But then there's always that second nay-saying side of me, that little voice in the back of my head saying I could amount to more, I could do better. That constant voice saying "Retail. Really? Really!? That's all I aspire to after 6 years of school and all those prospects that could have made me somebody, all I achieved is RETAIL!?!? No more 4K, no more career, no more insurance, no more designing and and no more shot at a lavish lifestyle and material wealth, I'm throwing it all away for fucking retail!?" So I guess you could say there is a bit of internal conflict in me when it comes to my working/school future.

Family...

My older brother, Timmy, the one who lived in California, well, he recently moved back. To Milwaukee. Still an hour or two away, but it's better than a plane ride away. This means he will now be present at almost all holidays, birthdays and most all family get-togethers, which is a hell of a lot of improvement over seeeing him just once a year at Christmas. Though it's still up in the air as to if this means I'll get to spend some actual one-on-one time with him or not. I'm not quite sure if he wants any of that to be honest. I'm not too sure of many things when it comes to Timmy, to tell you the truth. Whether you are talking to him, texting him, or faceabook messaging him, he never really says much, uses many words, shows much emotion, or gives you much to go on. It makes it very hard to read him, especially for someone like me who just blurts out anything and everything that comes into my mind the moment it comes into my mind. One thing for example, he never uses any "personable" words (not sure if that's the correct term). Like my friend I play Xbox with some nights, when he talks he sprinkles in various "personable" words: "man","bro","brah", "homie", "dude","buddy", or "bud" to name a few. "Nice shot bro!" "Nah man, I don't thinks so." "Thanks bud." Things like that. And it just takes the interaction to another level, special. Instead, when I talk to my brother there is just a heap of awkward silence. Now I realize that my friend just says those things because it's who he is and it's in his personality and you can't expect everybody to say those things but I'm just trying to give you an example of one thing out of hundreds of things that make my conversations with Timmy different from others. So our conversations don't flow nicely like the ought to and move along all janky and uneven. Instead my comments seem to be random tidbits or news about a game or movie, just stated starchily by itself out of the middle of nowhere. Honestly that's really all I talk to him like is a running transcript of news and recommendations because I don't know how to talk to him like a normal human being. In fact, it's rather unnerving conversing with him because of how many times I've fucked up talking to him in the past, overstepped my bounds and got him pissed and then have him avoid me for weeks at a time. I'm not even sure if he's still like that anymore but still those memories haunt me. His job? His wife? Politics? Religion? Family? Anything meaningful or with depth? None of that is safe conversation topics with him, at least I feel that way. And so I stick with only talking about video games or movies with him.

And then there's my sister. I get along great with my sister's husband. I get along great with my sister's kids. My sister? Not so much. I'm afraid I've fucked that relationship up beyond repair, and no number of years of playing it safe with her will amend my past. It's not like we fight or interact negatively in any way to each other, it's just the sort of thing I think the pain from the past won't leave her mouth so that it's made it so that even if she wanted to look at me the way she looks at the typical person she wouldn't know how to. I was a straight up cunt to her earlier in our lives. Don't worry I hate that word too, but that's just how bad I was to her, that I need to use that word. Sometimes in bed or sitting somewhere I think back at the words I said to her and things I did, I think of what my past actions have ruined for my future, and I think of who I will never get to be to her.

And finally...