12/28//2021

Sunday was a quiet day spent playing Stardew Valley. My character finally married Emily on the 7th of Spring, the farm is doing well, it seems I'm hitting a plateau in-game which makes me feel exhausted and tired by the grind. I cooked a cook-at-home pizza from Shop-Rite and it was just okay. My left foot isn't deadly painful like on Saturday but it feels the need to remind me of discomfort.

My employer sent me a gift card! Fifty bucks! Funny thing, the gift card from 2020 was for $100. Hilariously, my previous job in billing at a retail maintenance outfit in Lakewood I was given $800+ as a Chrsitmas bonus. Anyway that card is getting me a new bathrobe, replacing the George Foreman-branded one gifted to me by Jaybird and maribou back when I lived in Colorado. The old bathrobe is in disarray, there's a hole in it, the hanging loop has snappped, plus the white trim is now more of an off-white. It was a good run.

One thing I've discovered about this injury, and comcomitant pain, is how it's keeping me present. Present in the Alan Watts context, not as in Santa Claus. I'm not really thinking of the future, I'm stuck in the now, yet I'm doing everything I can to avoid thinking about my life right now. I've had "This is not forever" affirmed to me by a few people, including my sister, and I try to do positive affirmations every morning about how I'm getting better even if it appears my body is screaming otherwise. Life alone is kinda scary. It's like I'm waiting for Leah to appear out of nowhere, berate me and talk about how I'm worthless and did everything wrong, but it's not happening and that lizard-brain portion of me is really anxious.

Sad thing is I wish I could say I missed Leah as someone who was supportive and genuinely caring, contrast with caring out of a sense of duty which engenders bitterness and resentment, but instead there's only a void which should be peacefulness yet it simply echoes anxieties back at me. To the best of my recollection, every time I had an injury or sick there was a time when Leah would throw it back in my face. "You brought this upon yourself" and similar jabs at me.

When she shattered her ankle in the Caribbean back in July of '17, a few days before Dorp suddenly passed away, I never even thought to say, "God, you're a fucking idiot for even being on one of those jet skis! Weren't you looking? Good god, what are we going to do? We're so fucked now! And it's all because of you!"
My inner Leah, as I wrote that, is lashing at me with, "As you should have!" Followed by her accusing me of having her shovel snow from the driveway after her bariatric surgery or supercervical hysterectomy, delineating my general incompetence when it comes to caring for people despite having good intentions and trying what I think would be best, and so forth.
Jesus Christ, why did I stay with her for so long?

It doesn't matter. Leah has no conscience. She rarely apologizes. No one's opinion counts in her book besides her own opinion.

Okay that's enough rumination and negativity.