3:37 A.M.

(Mom, if you're reading this, I unsubscribed you from email notifications. I don't want my blunt style of dealing with my emotions to hurt you, specifically how I talk about dad. I suggest you not read the following.)

3:37 A.M.

Hey internet,

I have a job now

And I can drive

And I have a girlfriend

(And she's wonderful)

I have friends

I have followers on social medias

I have connections.

I know people.

I miss my dad.

If I didn't get off work at 2:30 a.m., then I'd have friends to vent to, do discuss my feelings with, to talk the earbud ear off of and to cry with.

Not that I could cry if I tried.

I resolved last night to write this post in a fit of lonely emotion.

I've discovered through very scientific research that it's nearly impossible for a person of my socioeconomic status to feel sad while playing the accordion naked (alone, of course).

Again, the hour in which I sit would bring my reprieve at a steep cost, and my family frankly needs the sleep.

(Besides, through further scientific study I've discovered that playing the accordion naked is often unappealing when in certain moods, rendering it a useless crutch.)

So here I sit.

It's not one single moment that lead me to this keyboard, it's a countless string of them that have occurred over the days since February 2019.

Diagnosis.

Think of this as a small taste of the thinly-veiled furor in my head.

Perhaps this is a tool for me to slowly unpack and disarm myself, ad you're just along for the ride.

Buckle up, buttercup, and take your Dramamine.

At this point, I'm being dramatic.

Who cares?

You really don't have to stay.

But you will, because anyone on this website to begin with is willing to listen because they care about me.

Thank you,

I can neither promise sanity nor linear thought, but as your reward cookie for sticking wit it I'll stop writing in that single-line, staccato format. I don't know if it'll read easier, but at least it looks cleaner. Here we go. I hope you like introspective.

I love stories. Bedtime stories, old stories, short stories, novels. We're all story brokers of sorts, and there's something about oral tradition that I'm ravenous for. Beowulf, Tolkien, Folklore and Grimm. Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories, Mining stories on Youtube. Homer. Gilgamesh. What happened to you in your car last week. Satire. Morals. If you'll tell me a story, I'll listen.

There are few things more peaceful to me than falling asleep with my head on the chest of a gentle storyteller. There's something about putting your ear on a comforter's chest and listening while they sing or impart wisdom or recount their childhood. Feeling the vibrations that punctuate their words. The warmth. The safety. If something's gonna get you, It has to go through him. It did and it did.

My dad worked a desk job, but that somehow didn't keep him from having the strength of a grizzly bear. The buff interior was blanketed in the results of his dietary choices and health issues, which would later go on to kill him. Lips that mine reflect would often say "Someday, you will be stronger than me... BUT NOT TODAY!!!" Paired with a playfully violent physical response, against which I struggled to no avail, it was one of many staples of my childhood.

Memories, joyful and very, very wrong, both overcome me. This isn't gonna be easy to write. I've trained myself to suppress my emotions so well, my brain has tried to erase my dad. It's easier to cope with humor than face the memories head-on. Our minds are intelligently designed, and they delete trauma for a reason. The brain will self preserve at all costs.

More staples come to mind. My dad's voice, echoing from the past, at every soccer and t-ball match I or my sister played in. "Hustle, hustle! Keep your eye on the ball! There it is. There it is! THERE IT IS!" Every Saturday regardless of weather. The occasional commitment kept him from the sidelines, until his failing health made a full-time job of it.

He is the primary reason I love music. Sitting in church between him and Mom taught me to harmonize. Laying my head on his chest while he sang is a feeling I miss terribly, more on that later. We jammed out on the guitar and other instruments, sang in front of the church for our annual Christmas dinner, belted in the car with old-school Christian Rock, and he sang me to sleep at night. I regret that I did not sing at his funeral.

When I think of my favorite moment with my dad, what usually comes to mind is a day when, after church, we drove to the beach as a family. We climbed into our Chrysler Town and Country, and made the two-hour-odd drive to Cannon Beach. While there, me and him threw around a frisbee. We weren't arguing over anything, I wasn't being deceptive, we were just hanging out and throwing the frisbee on the beach. Catch with dad is so cliché, but it remains in my mind a perfect memory.

Another pause, another look inward for material to write about. Another flood of emotion and memory. Oh, I have lots to write about, It's just not pleasant. At this point my logical, brainsweeping self-preserving response is to take a breather and not let myself feel the emotions. My amazing mind has already come up with a solution, so I can collect myself slightly while still being productive. I'm gonna go grab the picture for this article, and then I'm gonna come back and explain it.

4:36 A.M.

That didn't feel like 59 minutes, but it was I suppose. Regardless, I really should be getting to bed but I won't be. I'm fighting myself. I won't let my emotions surface, but I keep writing because I know they need to. They may not show more, but I know they will. "I waited til I saw the sun... I don't know why, cry didn't come..." Is non-applicable because of how much dang baggage I have. I've just barely started to open my griefcase. I got that from a meme.

I took the picture while hiking on Beacon Rock. Here it is full-size for simple reference:

While uploading that pic I got distracted and also uploaded a handful of pics I had in my downloads. Feel free to look them over:

I'm not sure what inspired me to take the photos I took of Dad on Beacon Rock. I think I was feeling artistic, although I was limited by my 5mp phone camera at the time. I'm glad I did. He stopped to rest there and probably to think. He was a very deep thinker, and never hesitated to share what he'd discovered or was on his mind. From him I get my entrepreneurial, happy-go-lucky spirit, my resolve, and hopefully some wisdom somewhere.

My eyes are getting heavy, I have work again tomorrow, and I have to be well rested for a theological discussion with some LDS missionaries with whom I've been conversing. I'll pick this up again tomorrow night. Should I post this and start a new one tomorrow? Nah, it reads better as a single article. I have so many things I want to show and tell my dad all about, So many words of affirmation I want to hear from him, so many people in my life who need him now more than ever an we're powerless to bring him back, I wish there was at least a grave, instead of the whole dang Pacific ocean where his ashes were supposedly spread. I love the beach, and when I see the ocean I want to remember playing frisbee, not the frail skeleton that was burned and ground. We'll see where tomorrow takes us, I'm too tired for this right now. I don't want to cry alone.

4:01 A.M.

Tomorrow.

The visit with the LDS missionaries went well. There were three of them this time, but I was not outnumbered. I prayed profusely for wisdom and guidance, and was aided. The Devil sending three misguided but certain men into my garage was concerning as our encounters usually are, spiritual warfare is scary to me. I often feel in over my head, prayer is always the solution.

I continue to slowly build friendships at my new job, although two freezer burritos during my 10 hour shift gave me a debt to pay when I got home. Adventures in Odyssey is the most valuable tool I have to make the time pass by, as much of my work is mindless.

I think I will post what I wrote yesterday and today, and post again when I have the time and the will. It'll likely be tomorrow night. Maybe in separating my posts I'll be less constrained to a single direction. I'll definitely come back to the topic I started on.

I acknowledge that it's just another defense mechanism. My brain is loath to let me hurt myself.

I need to stop running away.