It has been far too long since I’ve checked this website, much less thought about posting anything. 2022 was the hardest year of my life. I turned 25, though my quarter life crisis began at 24 with a myriad of career and med changes, a burgeoning eating disorder, and having my car die. Three weeks into 25 my first girlfriend left me, for the first time (three days after Valentine’s Day). The year was a nonstop barrage of problems and truth be told, I feel as though I still haven’t been able to fully recover.
As you’ll note, I said FIRST time she broke up with me. In total she left four times before I gave up hope of salvaging what we once had. I fought to save our relationship and build something better out of it. More than once she had claimed the people in her life would always leave her after two or three years. For the longest time my goal was to prove her wrong. But, after our second anniversary it seemed she was determined to self fulfill that prophecy. Somehow we went from laughing our way through dates and apartment hunting to receiving an automated “Sorry, the voice message box is full and can not receive new messages at this time. Good bye!” message whenever I’d call. I can still hear that robotic voice ring out.
She said she had been considering it since November, but she “couldn’t do it during the holidays”. Then she got kicked off campus and had to move in with me until her new apartment was ready, so she couldn’t get rid of me yet. After that happened she needed help moving in to her new place. She didn’t have anything to sleep on other than her mom’s partially deflated air mattress. It caused her stress, pain, and at least one sad cry. So naturally I bought her a bed. Then my 25th came up and she said she couldn’t break up with me before/on my birthday. Plus she was now afraid if she dumped me I’d take back the bed I bought her (For the record: I did not and would never). February swung around and I felt love in the air. Though in hindsight the bone chilling, crisp winter breeze should have been my sign it was anything but.
Of course nobody wants to be single on Valentine’s Day, so she let the holiday pass first. Or maybe she just didn’t want to miss out on the candle making reservation we had. Either way, the holiday came to pass. I made her a candle infused with rose oil and a few other inviting scents. Hers to me was infused with cigar, smoke, and tobacco scents. It currently resides unlit in a former Xbox 360 box labeled “the ex-box”.
As tempting as it is to continue spouting dribble about the ensuing months and failed attempts at winning her back, I feel there’s no point in it. I have no desire to drag her through the mud or hurt her feelings by drudging up bad memories. But, I will say, to this day I still think fondly of our time together, everything I miss, and what I could have done to change the outcome.
While I was trying to process the final breakup, my grandmother fell at her home. She liked having independence, and had been living alone since my grandfather passed back in 2020 (aside for the first few months where I stayed with her half the week). My aunt Janet constantly worried (something we have in common) about her, and did her best to take care of my Grandma whenever she could. Unfortunately, my Grandma didn’t like to think she needed her life alert button. With nobody to watch her, she had been stuck on the floor for hours before my aunt found her.
This started an exhausting three month battle between visits to different hospitals, surgeons, and eventually, hospice. The only pain I imagine to be worse than the grueling torture of seeing her waste away, was the pain she felt as she lost her self reliance. From powerful matriarch to hollow shell of her former self, living on sedatives and scant bits of jello, pudding, and soup. I couldn’t let it stop me from seeing her in her dying days. After the POOR reactions I had to both of my grandpas’ deaths, I needed to stay strong as I lost my last grandparent. I needed to force myself to stay present.
She ended up passing on December 12 2022, five days before her 95th birthday. To say it put a damper on the holidays would be putting it lightly. Since then there has been constant bickering between her three children about the estate and what all will happen. And despite talks of me purchasing it back in January, I am no longer in the running.
While reading through this update, I’ve struggled to find a positive note to end on, but I don’t think I have one. That said, I don’t feel I have a negative one either. I came across a quote while reading Mark Russell’s Superman: Space Age which read, “There are no such things as happy endings, but there are some pretty magnificent beginnings”. And I guess, though this brings an end to my silence, this is a beginning. It’s me trying to embrace the void of a blank page and turn it into something more. Where the journey will take me I do not know. So until then, much like Orson Welles, I remain always, obediently yours.
– JWJS
Jesse Shira's Rambling Rants 