Scarlet O'Hara

I've decided the best therapy for dealing with the troubles I have is to be unashamed of them and relatively public about them. Not that I'm waving a flag that says "Hey, look! I'm POOR! Give me sympathy!" But if you're open about it, it helps you accept things and realize what needs to change, and gives you some motivation to chnge it............well, at least it does for me.

So I've had a bit of a rough morning today. But that's ok, because it's part of being human. The things I've had trouble with weren't emotional, at least not directly. They were financial issues that I'm having that happened to stare me down this morning and make me feel like I'm completely worthless and will never get out of the hole I'm in.

I'm not going to go into too much detail, but you know that feeling that you just wish someone would help you out, but no one can? You know that feeling of knowing that no matter how hard you try, you're one uncontrollable incident away from complete catastrophic failure of epic proportions? Well, that's me today. I had some reminders of just how close to the edge I am. It's hard to stay optimistic during times like this.

But then I remember a movie I saw about a decade or so (give or take) ago. Tuesdays With Morrie (Which is appropriate, because today is Tuesday). The guy was dying, and one thing he said always stuck with me. The paraprased version of it is that he would allow himself to feel self pity, but only for a moment. He would allow it because it was a human emotion, and it was ok to feel the emotions he felt. But since it wasn't going to do any good to himself or anyone around him to wallow in it, he would allow it for only a moment. I'm not sure if it was an irrational fear response, or if it was actually an excellent coping mechanism, but I feel the need to follow this advice.

Right now I'm feeling relatively worthless, and like the road out of my current financial situation is long and extremely hard. I feel like there are a million things stacked against me, and that at any time I could fail by one small slip. I don't feel that it's fair, but my life has never been about what's fair. I don't feel that I deserve to be in this situation, but my life (and especially this year) hasn't been about what I deserve. It's going to be a struggle, but my entire life has been about struggle in one way or another. I won't go into it, but know that I'm not just saying that I've had to struggle for dramatic effect. I've had it better than a lot of people, but I've also had to fight for what I have with very little support in my favor. So yeah, I'm familiar with struggling. It's nothing new at this point. But the saving grace for me is that I'm willing and able to do what it takes to turn my situation around. I admit that I went dumpster diving 8 days ago to get scrap metal that I could take to the scrap yard. That load, combined with other materials I had collected, earned me an extra $56 this week, so I'm not ashamed of it because it helped put gas in my car and food on my table, but I do not want to be depend on that any longer than I absolutely have to. It's embarrasing to be that guy, and it's embarrasing to admit it to the world on a blog, but my hope is that one day I will be able to look back on this blog and be able to see it from the other side, and be reminded of what I had to go through to get there.

I freely admit that I am struggling because I am trying to stop being ashamed of things that are perfectly normal for humans to go through. I know plenty of people who are struggling financially, so why should I be ashamed of going through something that so many people are going through with me? The fact of the matter is that in order to change my situation, I have to accept it and find the determination to pull myself out of it. The Tuesdays With Morrie lesson that I mentioned above is one way of helping myself mentally to get through this. I allow myself the feeling of panic and desolation that comes with my current situation, then I swallow it and find the strength to pull myself out of it. I'm bound and determined to have what I want out of life, and am feeling very Scarlet O'Hara right now (again). lol.

And one of the main reasons that I blog about my struggles is that it helps me to feel better about it, get it out of my system, and regain my confidence in my abilities to pull myself up. If I get the negativity out of my system, and put it out for everyone to see, I also feel more determined to keep up my efforts to pull myself out because now I have accountability. If others are watching and I do nothing, then I feel like even more of a failure than I would if no one was watching and I did nothing. So doing all of this is sort of my own way of keeping myself from resting on my laurels.

So here I am, feeling better after writing this blog, and I'm feeling empowered again. I'm having another Scarlet O'Hara moment.

5 year plan: Phase 1 - Stability And Forward Motion.

In order for my 5 year plan to come to fruition, I need to take some actions. It's not going to come to be unless I get off my ass. So when I look at my 5 year plan, what's the first thing I think that I would need to get where I need to be?

Stability.

I mean financial stability of course. But after a summer of barely feeding myself with my income, how to I attain financial stability? I could set aside money into my savings, and that's the most obvious way to make sure that if I lose my job again that I won't go under, but that's more of a life boat as opposed to stability, and that could take quite a while to generate enough savings to live off of if worse comes to worse.

The answer actually solves two steps. It would not only provide stability for me financially, but also give me something I'm working toward that could help my business in the long run. I'm talking about continuing my education by taking business related courses at Columbus State Community College.

Here's how it would work.

Student loans and grants would pay my tuition, and any overage would be given to me directly in the form of a check to help pay for school expenses. This check would likely be nearly enough to pay for two months of rent if needed, so the logical answer would be to collect the overage check, buy whatever school related materials I need with it, then park the remaining amount in my savings account. This would give me enough savings to not fall off a cliff if I lost my temp job, and enough security in my finances to be able to make school a priority again!

From there, I take online classes whenever I can. The point of this would be to reduce my commuting costs. I live 50 miles from campus after all. If I'm trying to reduce my expenses, how can I justify spending $10 in gasoline to get to class and back home? Also, if my entire quarter is filled up with online classes, and I lose my day job again, then I won't have to worry about finding gas money to get to class 50 miles away. I can live off of my savings without bleeding money just to get to school.

So for the first time of my new life, I feel like I have a plan in place to take care of my needs that fits with what I want out of my life. This will just be the first step of many, but all great journeys begin with one step. Wish me well.

Getting Harder With Time

I hate when people tell me that I need to learn to be happy where I am. I've heard it from an ex girlfriend and from a friend, and I know that other people may have thought it when they've heard me complain about missing Colorado. It's almost like these people just don't get it in any way shape or form. The more time passes that I'm away form Colorado, the HARDER it gets for me. It's not getting any easier, and it's starting to become sort of an obsession of mine. All I look at online now are pictures of the Rockies. I watch videos that I shot in Colorado, and get lost in them, and when I turn around and find myself in Marion, I lost it just now when that happened.

I don't care if anyone thinks I sound like a whiny pussy fawning over some fucking mountains. I'm secure enough in myself to admit things to myself and others. I'm in love with those mountains, and losing them was one of the hardest things I've had to cope with in my adult life.

I need to get back. The sooner the better. I love everyone in my life in Ohio, but they can't know what I'm feeling.

Job security

Here I sit at my cubicle about to write a blog post about lack of Job Security while on a work computer. Yeah, stupid, I know, but this isn't what it seems like on the surface. I'm not bitching about my job. I'm glad to be back in this cubicle! Rather I'm ranting about the lack of Job Security as a whole........Anywhere. It's a myth. It doesn't exist. That's one thing I kept telling my co-workers before I was downsized over the summer, and it's something that I continue to believe now that I'm back in my cubicle. There's no such thing.

If you're going to attain financial security, it's something you have to fight for and get ono your own........at least for someone who isn't a trust fund baby like me. For me, this will be a struggle, and will have many pitfalls. The odds are stacked against me, I'm in debt and have a low income. Most of that low income is eaten up by that debt, and there's hardly enough left to set back for savings. It seems almost impossible, but I know that it's not. It can't be.

So the propositions ahead of me are as follows.

A - Continue to work for, and be completely dependant on, someone else....

B - Pave my own way and get the freedom that I desire....

If you read this blog, you know my choice. But the thing is that, as I mentioned, this is much easier said than done. Right now, there's no way I could afford to live without the day job I have. I've had worse jobs, I could easily be in a far worse situation, so don't think I'm complaining. I actually like this job! But I know what I want out of life, and this is a means to that end and is only temporary.

Today I'm fired up to make this transition as soon as possible. I'm considering what my next move would be to get me where I need to be in order to bring my 5 year plan to fruition. All I know is that I won't get there by standing still. After all, I could sit here and rely on this job to get me there, but this job could lead me astray again (I'm a temp, and they may not need me anymore....it's business, and it happens).

The main point of this is a point I've made before. I'm growing more and more frustrated at not being able to live my life on my own terms. It's time to take whatever actions I can to change that.

Under the tree this year.....

This holiday season will be much different for me in many ways. This year, instead of having a steady income, and a 12 year tradition of overspending on one person, I'll have a low income and no tradition of spending because this will be my first holiday without Sarah since 1998.

So here I am at the end of August, with my new life still in it's infancy, and all I can think about is what I've lost.

Not WHO I've lost, but WHAT I've lost.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I have a growing need to be in the mountains again. It's getting worse every day that I'm away from them. It's like falling in love with the most beautiful person in the world, and being separated from them against your will.

So here's what I want for the holidays this year. Gas money. A place to crash out west for a few days. An escape from Ohio with a beautiful lady. Enough money to justiy taking a week off of work unpaid so that I can not worry about how I'll put food on my table when I get back.

If you want to make me happy this year, put a trip under the tree.

twitter........

I did something stupid. I started looking back at my twitter posts from before I left Colorado, just to see what I had been talking about. The shitty thing is that I remembered exactly what life was like for me there, and how happy I was. This made me kinda angry and resentful to Sarah, not for leaving me, but for leaving me in Ohio rather than Colorado.

There's not really any feelings left toward the relationship, that's been dead for a while now. It's going on 10 months now since she told me she needed space, and since then that crumbled and died. But the scars of what I left behind are still fresh, and I miss the rockies so much it's like an ache.

So here I sit, up later than I should be, looking at tweets about installing a raindirk console, or packing up for a mobile session with Alpha Omega in Westminster, or bitching about the 3 inches of snow in early May, and wishing like hell that I could just get that all back. I feel like I got a real raw deal, and am relatively pissed about it.

I'll be fine in the morning, but I just needed to vent.

Good night.

Looking Ahead To New Years Eve 2017.

I look ahead 5.5 years, and here's the vision of my life that I see.

I've grown from a meager studio in Marion Ohio to one of the best local music factories for Columbus Ohio! Skyline Sound Studios is now located in Columbus Ohio, and is a self sustaining small enterprise with a steady flow of business and a couple of full time engineers. Right now, in 2011, you think of Joe Viers and Sonic Lounge. By that point, you'll think Brandon S. Hire and Skyline Sound Studios.

I've also branched out into work as a freelance engineer working on albums for bands all over the country in the studio of their choice. This allows me the flexibility to travel and expand my enterprise to the far reaches of the country.

I've opened a Skyline Sound Studios branch in Denver, and began working to make the studio a strong competitor in the Denver music scene. I set up dual residency in Columbus Ohio and Denver Colorado, and travel back and forth as needed to run each business in each state. Perhaps I'll spend spring and fall in Ohio and winter and summer in Denver? Who knows, that might be overthinking it at this point.

I've created a self sustaining income stream from Project DIVIDE and my solo musical efforts, and have set up rehearsal spaces in both Columbus and Denver so that work on both projects can continue. I could fly to Ohio for a month to work on a new Project DIVIDE writing project, or Josh could fly to Denver to work with me on it! Either way, work would continue on both projects and remain a priority.

I'm living at least 2/3 of my time in Denver, but coming to Ohio often enough to keep a presence in the scene and keep business generated at the Columbus branch of Skyline Sound Studios. I've got the best of both worlds.

I realize this is ambitious, but quite frankly, I'm an ambitious fucker! The lyrics of Freddy Mercury come into my head when I think about it, "I want it all, and I want it now!"

So now my focus will remain on the date of December 31st, 2017. That's my target date. We'll see how things shape up, stay tuned.

Feeling Human

To err is human. To feel human is to feel the consequences of your err. In that case, I feel very human right now. But in a way, it makes me happy to know that I can feel this human, even though it doesn't feel good.

I'm not going to go into specifics, in fact this will remain intentionally vague. But long story short, I did something stupid and it hurt someone I care about as a friend. It made them feel pressured, and unimportant. I'm not ok with acting so stupid, and I'm not ok with having made a friend feel this. I'm trying to improve myself, so in some ways, it's good to know that I have that part of me to work on, but I still feel like a major dick.

So to the person I'm referencing, please know that I've had nothing but massive amounts of love and respect for you from the beginning. I know you've said you've forgiven, and not to worry about it, but the human side of me won't let me. And I'm glad that I can feel this human, it helps reaffirm to me that I am human.

Life on my terms. (My 5 year plan, so to speak.)

For 12 years, I was happy. For 12 years, I followed the one I loved around the country, saw new and exciting places, and experienced new and exciting things. 3 years ago, I fell in love with the location that I found myself in with her. 1 year ago, her new job took me away from that place. 10 months ago, the relationship started to crumble, and 6 months ago I found myself on my own for the first time in my adult life.

But if you read my blog, you know this.

I now find myself having gone through an emotional hell over the last 6 months, and am coming out content on the other side. But now that my life is in my own hands for the first time, what am I gonna do with it? I'm 30, have no savings, have a college degree that could easily land me a job at Pizza Hut, and have started a business but am not able to rely on it's revenue as income as of yet. Things are tight.

But, again, if you read my blog, you know this.

I've sworn a pact that by the time I'm 35, I'll be in a better place financially. I don't wanna be worried about living paycheck to paycheck in 5 years. So I've started saving at least 10% of my paychecks, now that I'm employed again at my old day job and making a somewhat decent wage (for an unskilled position that is).

But, yet again, if you read my blog, you know this.

So what's new then?

I'm starting to realize that I need the mountains. My soul cries for them. I listen to beautiful music, and place myself there mentally. I listen to piano music in thunderstorms and picture that I'm actually listening to it in a blizzard, and I'm holding a cup of coffee while wrapped in warm winter clothes while sitting near the fire, and I'm watching the snow fall. I will be sitting in traffic in Columbus Ohio and have a sudden flash of a vision of a mountain pass I used to drive every day and took for granted. I think all the time about returning, and honestly feel such a connection with them that when I do see them again I might start crying (yeah, I'm a whiny wuss, but have YOU ever fallen in love with where you lived?)

So now that I know what I want, how do I get there? The easy answer would be to just find a job in Denver and move. But I've uprooted and moved somewhere new every two years for the entirety of my adult life. Since Sarah left, I've planted roots in Ohio again. I don't wanna uproot and start over yet again, only to have to struggle to re-start my business in a new market AGAIN and work a crappy day job to make ends meet AGAIN! I need to set up some sort of financial support structure for myself, and I need to stay here for a while to get my life in order first.

So how do I get back my majestic mountains? By making a 5 year plan, and sticking to it. My life is now in my hands, and I'm not young anymore (only 30, but still, the clock is ticking). These are in no specific order, and needs fine tuning, but here is what I'm hoping to accomplish over the next 5 years.

1. Build the studio business.
If I establish a solid client base and body of work, then it'll be much easier for me to get work in other markets. It'll take less time too, and as I hone my networking skills in Columbus, I'll be able to jump into a new market that much easier. Also, if I decide to start up another studio somewhere else, and have a self sustaining operation here, then I would be able to generate an income from the studio in Columbus while focusing my efforts on establishing myself in a new market.

2. Establish myself as a producer.
This one will be trickier, because when I tried the whole freelance producer / engineer schtick before it didn't go very well. It wasn't until I bought my own studio gear and opened shop that I started actually earning anything resembling an income doing this. But now that I've had some experience getting clients, have learned about running my own business, have marketing and networking skills, ect. I think I could give it a more succesful go this time. Establishing myself as a producer would mean that I could be more flexible. I could go from studio to studio to work on projects, as opposed to worrying about my own studio. This would be tricky, but it would also mean that I could go anywhere and be flexible. This is actually a key part of me getting back to where I want and need to be.

3. Project DIVIDE and my solo musical efforts.
A band is a business, and with the internet even a studio band can generate a living income. Just look at Jack Conte for a classic example. Here's a guy who's diversifying his income potential by not only promoting himself as a solo artist, but as 1/2 of the wildly successful Pomplamoose. Here's a guy who's cracked the code, and shown me the path to success in the music industry on a completely independant level. Here's a guy who shows that it can be done, and he's doing it. So my plan is to use the tools now at my disposal to promote my solo career, as well as that of the collaborative project I'm in with Josh Zeise known as Project DIVIDE. With Project DIVIDE, I have a rock and metal project that will fulfil my itch to play that style of music, and if we can market it correctly, it will be profitable for both of us. With my solo efforts, here's a chance to venture into new territory artistically and experiment. This will also be a chance for me to tap into a marketshare that might not be as into the Project DIVIDE material, which would increase my earnings potential.

The basis of all of this is, of course, money. I can't just pick up and do what I want with my life because money is too much of a constriction for me. My 5 year plan is in place to give me some financial independance, allow me to live my life as I see fit and on my own terms, and allow me to make it back to Colorado with a healthy financial status. Because of the roots I'm establishing here, I'd likely have dual residency in Colorado and Ohio, but that's the beauty of where I want to go with my career in music. It would allow me the freedom to get what I want, and be able to keep the mountains in my life, while not neglecting the roots I'm establishing here in Ohio.

All I can say at this point is that it's a rather ambitious conquest. I realize that, and I realize that the odds will always be stacked against me. But I want my life to be completely different when I'm 35 than it is now at 30. Let's see if I can pull it off. Stay tuned.

Love, Hate, Sex, Pain

Love, Hate, Sex, Pain, It's complicating me sometimes

I never thought I'd relate to a Godsmack lyric.

Never. lol.

Trying to decode what's in my fucked up cranium this year has been one of the biggest challenges of my adult life. But I'm (hopefully) coming to some conclusions about what I need to do. I need to learn to love myself again, because right now I hate myself. Don't worry, I'm not the suicide type. In general I've always had a certain love for life. But lately, I've just hated my own life, and I know that a lot of people can relate to that.

I've never admitted it to her (though she'll probably read it here…..sorry), but after Sarah left, I realized that I had conformed a lot of what made me into who I was to fit the situation that I was in. I conformed my views on things, my actions, my hobbies…..there weren't many aspects of me that weren't conformed. This is one of the reasons why 1 year ago I had no desire to create my own music anymore. I was content just producing other people's music. But now that she's left the picture, I turned to music for solace, and found that I HAVE to have that in my life. I HAVE to have that outlet. Since then, I've stepped back out on the stage as a solo acoustic performer, and I've co-founded Project DIVIDE. But music is just one of the aspects of myself that I conformed.

So why did I do it? It wasn't so much that she wanted me to, but rather that I felt my needs were being fulfilled in the relationship. I didn't care anymore about any of those things, so I let them go. Though I will admit that there were aspects of me that I've since uncovered that I know were originally covered up for the sake of the relationship, but I won't get into that. Let's just say that if it were to come around again, she wouldn't recognize me, and I'm not compromising anymore.

So that sounds like a positive statement, and I realize that. So why do I hate myself? I've got a lot of good things going for me. I just got my job back, I'm making money, I've got some really awesome friends, I've got studio work, and above all I've been able to retain a roof over my head and not have a single utility turned off during my unemployment. The fighting spirit in me is reaching out for a high 5 right now! Things are going to be good in the future, as I've decided to be much more responsible with my spending habits, but I've touched on that in a previous blog. I've got a lot going for me right now.

But I've got problems too. I've got major ones. I go no further into this topic for privacy reasons, but I have some one I care about IMMENSELY who is depressed and is going through a tough time. That's wearing down on me.

I've got a lot of internal conflict too. I suppose this is all a part of the process of trying to rediscover who I am after having everything in life stripped away. But the fact is that it's overwhelming at times. I've made some stupid decisions, I had developed a drinking problem (I'm now for the most part sober….a beer or two here or there is no big deal, but my problem was beyond that as I spent every day for 3 whole weeks shit faced at one time…..not cool).

I know this will sound vague, but there are things that I know I want, but also things that I can't bring myself to take by the reigns yet because of all the internal conflict that I'm going through. I'm not going to be specific, but just know that it's not only causing me a lot of stress, but it's hurting someone else that I care about quite deeply. I feel that trying to address my own personal suffering is causing this person way too much un-needed stress. I'm beginning to wonder whether or not this person would be better off if I just let them be and quit indirectly hurting them.

So thats why I hate myself. I feel that on one hand, I need to be what's in my own best interest so I can figure out my own shit and be able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning, but on the other hand I know that this is hurting someone else very badly. I've always been a caring person who tries not to do others wrong, but I feel that I'm failing miserably in this case. The guilt of that is tearing me apart, and makes me wonder about my own self worth. Trying to figure out how to handle this when I'm so conflicted on what my own head is telling me is making life very difficult right now.

As I write this blog, I'm listening to the videosongs from Jack Conte's VS4 album. A friend of mine was right, Jack's stuff is great when you're sad. Here are some that are encompassing how I'm feeling lately.

Money and life.

I make no secret of my financial situation. I publicly talk about being poor on my blog, because really.....who gives a shit? If I have something to get off my chest about my financial situation, so be it. Before I go into this blog post, I want to touch on the idea that money isn't everything. Ok, sure, money isn't everything, and money can't buy happiness in the Tibetan philosopher sense. But the fact of the matter is that a lack of money suddenly can make money the only thing that's important in life. After all, the bills don't stop just because you don't have the income.

Believe me.

Now, with that said, I'm 30 years old with about $40 to my name. Sure, I own my own part time business, I have a car, and a pretty nice roof over my head. On those levels, I can't complain. Things could definitely be worse. But I had to bum $5 off of a colleague today in order to have enough gas to get back to Marion, and I barely made it in time to visit the local scrap yard, which paid me $13 for the scrap metal I'd collected. This $13 will go toward putting more gas in my tank so that I can go out and try to better my situation.

This blog post isn't intended to be me bitching about how bad my situation is. I live in one of the poorest cities in the state of Ohio, which in turn makes my cost of living stupid low and allows me to live in a much nicer dwelling than I could afford in Columbus. So there are some things that are definitely working in my favor, especially when you consider the poverty rate of my community. We're a bunch of poor sons of bitches, yet I've been able to maintain a roof over my head and have yet to have a utility disconnected! (Three weeks of Ramen Noodles 3 times a day helped that happen).

This blog post is instead a declaration that I'm not going to be in the same boat when I'm 35 if I can help it! After Sarah left, I was living paycheck to paycheck, but not really doing it as responsibly as I could have. The income from my job in Dublin was just enough to keep me afloat with some quality of living, though not much. When that job went away, and I had absolutely no money coming in for 3 weeks (thank you unemployment checks), that really set me back even further than I already was. The companies I owed my (lack of) money to were less than understanding of my situation. I had to borrow money from a much loved uncle in order to pay my rent last month. I'm left here looking around at my financial situation, and looking at myself asking why in the hell I'm in this situation?!

Well, the fact of the matter is that I am. And believe me, when money is a huge issue in your life it becomes everything to you. Getting back on my feet financially is the single most important goal I have in my life now. And now that my old job has me returning to their ranks in 10 days, I know that if I adhere to some strict rules and do all I can to maximize my bottom line, I'll be ok once again. In fact, with luck, I'll be in better shape than I was before I lost the job in the first place!

Step one. Pay myself first. Period.

Minimum of 10% of ALL income goes into a savings account. Be it income from the studio, music sales, music performances, day job payroll, scrap yard salvage.......whatever it is. If I take just my prior income alone of $430-week and put 10% in a savings account, then after a month, I've got $172 saved. Even if all I can do is $172 each month, after 12 months, I've now got $2064 saved back for another job loss, or emergency situation. And while I have a lot of bills that need to be paid right now, and owe a lot of money, this rule cannot be deviated from unless it is a dire circumstance. After all, I don't want to find myself jobless again in 6 months with nothing in the bank to help sustain me til I find another job. Last time was a nightmare!

Step 2. Diversify.

Find multiple income streams, and use this to help not only increase my bottom line, but also to help build my savings. Let's take my $430-week day job and include extra income from selling scrap metal to the local recycling plant, as well as any money earned from the studio, and any money earned from music sales and performances, and now we've got a much healthier financial picture. The day job is easy enough, I show up and work 40 hours each week and they pay me. The scrap metal selling should also be easy enough, as I have colleagues who are doing electrical work and have promised me their leftover scraps. I've been getting this weekly from them and have been making nearly $80-$100 each week from that alone (depending on how much they have for me to salvage). That could equal up to $400 in a month, which is almost like getting an entire extra paycheck from my day job! Then we have the studio's earnings, which ok it's still spotty and not quite self sustaining yet. I'm taking steps to make that a reality. During this period of unemployment, the studio's income has had to all be applied to the "regular income" category. Once the full time paychecks start picking back up, studio income can go back into the category of "extra income"! Let's face it, right now, anything extra will help! And if I add into that picture any money I earn from the sale or performance of my music, that's just icing on the cake!

I'm still working on figuring out other ways to get a healthier financial situation for myself and get out of debt, and maybe I'll talk about those when those ideas come up. But one thing is certain. If I stick to my guns and am very strict about my money (for the first time in my life), I should be able to finally have a much healthier financial picture than I did before. And believe me, not having to worry about money makes for a much better quality of life.

Wish me luck.

Anger......sort of

I just wish I knew.

I was getting ready for bed, but my acid reflux was acting up and I was out of Prilosec. All I wanted was a glass of milk to help soothe the burning in my chest, but I was out of that as well. So I decided to drive to Walmart to buy some of each. Trying to be frugle thanks to my financial situation that this year has put me in, that was all I intended to buy, but after I grab the prilosec I decide to walk around wal-mart for a few and just kill some time.

I see the clearance section. This is where I ran into trouble, and got sad and angry. You see, the clearance section was something that Sarah would spend 10 minutes in at times just browsing, and I couldn't pull her from it! Let me be clear, I no longer miss our relationship. I've had two since then. But the problem is that Sarah just moved out of the house 6 months ago and we were together just under 12 years, meaning that there's going to be a lot of things that come up that I'm going to have to sift through.

So what was I angry and sad about? Well, for starters, I was angry at all that I've lost this year. I was angry at all the changes that were forced upon me that I've had to just deal with, and I never had a say in the circumstances surrounding the changes. Another thing I grew angry at was the loss of a lifestyle. I was no longer able to justify spending $3 in the clearance section on something cool or even needed, because money was so tight that I'm now picking up pennies that I find on the ground!

This all just took me back, yet again, to when times were happy for me. I remembered midnight trips to Walmart in Evergreen Colorado, which is probably the nicest looking Walmart in the country. I remember one night when a cloud bank was hovering over the parking lot (the store was at about 8,000 feet above sea level in the Rockies), and you could see white owls swooping down through the clouds and coming into view of the parking lot lights. Times were happy, and my surroundings seemed magical. This made me sad again that I'd lost that happiness and love for where I lived, and angry for the same reasons.

Now that the anger that had surfaced has subsided, I'm left with the sadness. But this all begs one important question. If I'm over the relationship, how long will it take for me to get over losing everything else I loved? How long will I be angry at the hand life dealt me? How long will I be held down trying to get back up because of it? How long will I have to wait before my mind stops triggering these things?

How long will all this take? I just wish I knew.

This is unrelated, but I like to listen to this when i'm down.