It aint perfect but i don’t mind.
The voice in my head keeps saying posting this makes me look weak or that no one cares, but that voice is usually wrong. The last few months have been rough. I haven’t been taking care of myself. I can barely afford my bills, haven’t been working out, been eating like shit, and being generally hard on myself like I tend to be anyway has put me into a negative loop of shit. And that happens. But you gotta pull yourself out somehow. Most days I debate whether getting out of bed is even worth it. Without my son here, without family around, it’s been hard to find any meaning.
After my last post, things haven’t gotten or haven’t felt any better. I still feel lost every day. I’m not a stranger to loss. Loss is a given in life. I’ve had friends and exes pass, family members too. I’ve lost people when I had my son, when I got sober. I’ve lost people to time, booze, drugs, women, jobs, all kinds of reasons. I’ve lost more opportunities than I can count. I’ve lost people to suicide. I’ve lost people because our time was just up. I’ve been in love, lost love, faked it, thought I had it when I didn’t. Whatever the reason, you’re gonna lose sometimes. You’re gonna have a bad service in the kitchen sometimes, just like life. None of us get out of this alive. Cliché drivel, sure, but it’s true. The sooner you sit sober with that fact, the easier it gets.
I miss my fucking son. Every day feels like a war inside my own head. I’m a bad father. I need to move. He’s going to hate me. He won’t even know who I am. Everyone’s judging me. Those thoughts play on a constant loop. It’s hard to fix those stressors when I can barely keep myself afloat financially, let alone pack up, leave everything I’ve started here in Cincinnati, and start over.
“Starting over” seems to be the hot mental health buzzword for people my age. And yeah, the idea of disappearing somewhere no one knows me is appealing as hell. But that’s not in the cards right now. And that hurts. It hurts every damn day. I just hope one day he understands. That hope is what keeps me going.
I’ve never been wealthy or good with money. I come from a modest, working-class family. My parents worked hard to keep everything together, and I know it wasn’t easy. No one ever taught me about money. Not school, not my parents. It wasn’t their fault, they were just doing the best they could. Finance was an elective, and what nerd would sign up for that? Not me. Too cool. I’m not here begging for help, that’s not me. But this year has been the toughest financially, maybe ever. I used to have a salary. I’ve been self-employed. I’ve also blown $900 in one night at a club. That’s not living.
So what is living? Is it drinking until you can’t feel the weight of your own thoughts? Watching football with your boys for 72 hours straight while ignoring your wife and kids? Is it your phone, sex, gossip, TV? Maybe it’s the gym, religion, studying, reading. Not all distractions are bad. But the longer you distract yourself from looking inward, the less time you have to fix whatever you’re running from in the first place.
My hope in sharing this isn’t for sympathy or attention. I just want to help one person. One kid, one person who might see themselves in this and feel less alone. No amount of money can fix this kind of pain. Time is the only real currency we have, and it’s not even tangible. It just keeps going, infinite, while we only get to live through a small piece of it.
Whatever you believe, just know this: this is the only life we get. I’m rambling, but if you’ve made it this far, I hope you get what I’m trying to say.
When life’s good, the fridge is full, money’s good, you’re eating out at the trendy restaurants, drinking on the weekends, watching football, it’s easy to forget what living really means. Those distractions keep most people sane just long enough. I know some of you feel this too. Life swings from highs to lows. It gets bad, real bad, and then somehow it gets good again. Sometimes so good you forget the pain that came before. But don’t forget where you came from. It’s alright to not be okay.
Keep walkin’. 🤜
-Tony
