Personal Journal

This was the hardest day

Not a good day. This is what I thought Christmas would feel like, but at Christmas, I was too fucking numb to feel this awful.

I'm out of most of it for now, and I don't want to bring myself down so much in my journal that I want to think about it. It sucked, let's leave it at that. I was non-functional at work - I couldn't even hold a conversation where I was.

So I left. Decided that no matter what, it wouldn't hurt me to walk. I really didn't want to go, and I finally convinced myself to by reminding myself that I wasn't going to exercise, I was going to my temple to talk to god.

And that's how today's walk went. A lot of talking with god. I got myself to cry, and that also is something that never harms my demeanor, and usually improves it.

I made a VAlentine's wish to the people who knew Jean at her journal site. I'll make it here, too.

I wish for people to find in their hearts what it means to be loved, and what it means to act lovingly - and to behave that way toward your lover. Give what you seek to have...

That's the absolute best thing that I can hope for today. Somewhere, someone gets it, and does it, and touches the one they love.

What do I feel about Valentine's day?
I wasn't one of those men who devalued the day with charade's of the materialism associated with it. I didn't always do the "date" part of it on the 14th due to crowds, but I always had a card and a gentle word. I was trying to remember what I did last year for Jean for Valentine's day.

I vaguely remember she really did not want any observance. She had just had her biopsy brain surgery about 10 days before, and we knew by then it was terminal brain cancer.

I don't remember what I did last year, and I'm a little afraid I didn't do anything. But that's not like me, and I probably did something. Even if just a card and note.

But I decided I don't want to go back and look at what was going on in my life one year ago. I'm too afraid of the pain that will come from looking back there.

And that's why I don't want to write about my feelings about the meaning of THIS Valentine's day. I already lived this, quite painfully, prior to my walk. I don't want to revisit it for fear of re-experiencing it.

Suffice it to say that even though I told Jean "I love you" so many, many times over those last 11 months...

it destroys me not to be able to tell her today...


And I'm going to include the prayer of St. Francis here. I like to follow the guys who saw visions... St. Paul and St. Francis...

Anyhow, the ending line brings me comfort today:
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Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is darkness, light,
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not
so much seek to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

St. Francis of Assissi