Blog???
I talk too much.
slightly disorganized thoughts about handling loss and sadness and that type of shit
8-31-25
Grief has informed a lot of my work over the past few years, and sometimes I feel self conscious about it. As if people are gonna be like, "jeez does this guy think about anything else? we get it man, people break up/die/leave and the goals, life-direction, and sense of security that were attached to those people disappears forever! GOD! Everyone knows it already!"
But that's what I was going through, and I can only give what I have.
I was talking with my friend about his recent breakup.
I tried to say something like: every new iteration of loss is going to hurt, and the severity of the major losses scales with your life as you grow. You will be okay and eventually you will be stronger, but going through it to get to that point is still going to be hard and painful and real.
I felt like I was saying: IT'LL GET WORSE TOO. MORE PAIN IS COMING.
Thankfully he said he understood my meaning. I think I worry too much about being misinterpreted.
There are smaller losses and pains in the meantime, of course. It's not some linear thing where each one exceeds the last, but I think the reason it feels that way sometimes is because of the growth you've done. It's not that suffering knows to level up with your experience, but with your experience, it becomes that the big ones- the new ones, the harsher realities, the ones you aren't ready for- those are the ones that get to you. It's impossible to be cut up about every little thing when you've also got real shit to handle, and it takes time to build the frame of reference that tells you what is going to prove to be little and what is "real shit."
I was thinking of when I was younger and crying in the park one night over a guy who rejected me after I'd spent a week or so feeling optimistic that we had something good building up. We were friends, and all signs were pointing towards development of more. I was so excited, only to be told later that he wasn't ready for a relationship and that he didn't want to end up hurting me by defining it. Classic.
Months later, if that, I met someone else. That also fell apart over the course of several weeks when he broke it off via text message while vacationing in Florida. Two in a row. I was meant to be alone forever. Who knows what Davey Havok was going through when he wrote the lyrics of "But Home is Nowhere" (from AFI's 2003 album "Sing the Sorrow"), but his repetition of "I remain alone" at the end of every chorus was about me, specifically. I remember telling my friend Abbie about it while we worked on decorating our LiveJournal accounts. Comparing color schemes and font choices between my resolutions to not try any more with relationships.
Those stories sound so juvenile now. almost endearing... But the feelings were real. My nearly-developed young adult brain still went through it.
It was probably the first time I'd experienced that kind of rejection. That is, actually pursuing someone who did not want me that way. If it happened today?... Honestly, I might still cry. Maybe. There are so many factors. The development of our emotional strength and resilience, like seemingly everything else, isn't quite linear. I'm sure I'd come back quicker, though, and I'd have perspective to know that my entire world hadn't just fallen apart. Particularly in the second instance, the Florida one. I think I would laugh at him now.
A couple years ago, I went through a breakup of a long-term relationship of about ten years. Although it was amicable and understandable, it was still difficult. During our last conversation as a couple, I could tell they were hesitating to say what needed to be said, so I did it for them. For us, really. There was no more sense in fighting what had to happen. That was a hard night, but what revealed itself to be harder for me long term was the realization that my life no longer had a major direction. I had smaller personal goals with my art and music and things like that, but my overall idea of where my life was headed was vaporized in an instant. I didn't know what I was supposed to do with myself. Just try to buy a house in my home town and live there? No clue. I hadn't worked towards any sort of stability here because I wasn't going to be here, as far as I knew.
I hardly had time to process it, though, because a few weeks later, my best friend died. It was sudden and unexpected. No illness, no warnings, nothing. Just a notification that appeared on the top of my phone one Monday evening after work from a mutual friend of ours. She was just gone. This pain is like nothing else I've ever experienced. It felt like part of me died, too. There is a major division in my life now: before and after. In my mind, I see it like a giant fissure splitting something in two jagged halves. I was and still am devastated. I still break down over this from time to time. Not on the daily anymore, but still very easily. For a while I wasn't sure I would make it to a time when it wasn't daily. Now I think I have accepted that it's a new part of my life- to sometimes break down into tears. Someone should invent frequent crier miles am I right??? Anyway, It will never be "Okay," but life builds around it and you find a way to go on.
If this experience has given me anything good, it's a deeper understanding of what other hurting people are going through, and I do see value in that. I think that my capacity for empathy has grown from it. I won't pretend it was all just a big positive lesson, though- there's a definite trauma that comes from it. Issues around abandonment anxiety are certainly not doing better as a result, but if there is a positive side, it's empathy that has increased to a level I didn't know was possible to feel, because it comes from a pain level that I also didn't know was possible to feel. Unfortunately this has also given me a deep fear of what will come. If this amount of pain is possible, how much deeper can it go? For another time, though.
About a month later, another friend died. The circumstances were different, both in our relationship to each other and in the more expected nature of their passing from complications with long term illness. Still, they were too young. They were someone I was very close with in my highschool and early college years, but over time had grown apart. No falling out, just the result of changing lives. They were still a presence in my life, though. We kept in touch online. Always a supportive voice in my comments. We had some ancient inside-jokes. How was I supposed to handle this one? I think I just felt like the embodiment of "Oh..."
Not indifferent, but in that moment, at a loss for what to do or think. It's just going to keep happening?
There are others I didn't touch on. Older family members. The most recent being my great uncle Alfio. With old people, there's an understanding that we all have our time limits, but it's still sad. It's not as shocking, but there is a pain in witnessing the people who were present ever since you came into the world disappearing one by one, and losing what always felt so erroneously stable. This is part of life, though. It's going to keep happening. Sometimes it will make sense and sometimes it won't, but it's going to keep happening.
What happened after that little period of tragedy? Well, plenty. Two years have gone by. Good and bad, more heartbreak and rejection, but relevant to this writing, I met a wonderful new friend, and also he moved away. (lol hi, if you're reading)
A friend leaving is a sad event, but it's obviously, obviously not the same as death. Besides, didn't I just say something about how hard experiences put things into perspective and teach you that you can survive? Or something like that? So what gives? Didn't I level up?? Why was I still upset after my friend left? Especially since I was also happy for him and knew that he was on his way to do some very exciting things. Two things true at the same time? Annoying. Embarrassing. I'm an adult, and I was over here feeling angst like a teenager. At least, I think angst is culturally expected to be more of a teenager thing.
Prior experience doesn't prevent the feelings, turns out. It just helps you understand that you will get through it, even when you can't always see light at the end of the tunnel. A disappointing realization, but you still end up in the tunnel sometimes, to continue with that metaphor. Even when it feels kind of childish. Even when you know you've been through worse. Maybe the growth is how you handle it. Maybe something incredibly less severe than the worst thing you've ever felt can still hurt plenty and stir up the same cauldron of emotions, but you get through it and find out it's another survivable situation.
(If you are reading this, by the way, I'm sorry to sound so dramatic about the whole thing. It's very hard to sound cool and unphased the way I want to be, while also being honest enough to use it as an example of something that did make me feel sad. Maybe some day I'll become nonchalant, but I haven't figured it out yet.)
I have compared dealing with grief to exercising a muscle, in the sense that repetition makes your ability stronger. I also think that like a muscle, it ideally should have periods of rest to avoid injury. I don't imagine there's a world in which I'm totally unaffected by a good friend moving far away, but maybe I would have handled things with more ease if there was a completely healed version of me. Maybe not, though. I'll never know. It's not like life is a controlled environment where we can choose when to take a break from hard times. If that was the case, I would simply choose to always have a nice time. What I do know is that I have been feeling more fragile than strong in recent years. I'm starting to get back up, though. I'm just barely dusting myself off again, and I'm saying to myself, "Okay... I'm starting to think I'll be all right, as long as I don't ever have to go through anything sad again."
(lol)
What am I getting at with all this?
I think part of it is to say that if I seem like I've been down in recent years, it's because I have been.
I think a more important part of it is to say that even when we have experience in severe grief, we will continue to be affected by varying types of loss. That isn't the part you grow out of.
It is something that I guess you prove to yourself to be capable of doing, over and over and over.
I'm trying to find an encouraging way to wrap this up, but I'm struggling. The suffering never ends, folks! But we're still here! Try to find moments where it pauses. Try to show people you love them while you can.
I still don't know exactly what to do with my life. I will continue missing my friends. But over time, I can tell that my emotions are stabilizing, even if slower than I would like. I might not be doing fantastic, but I'm better than I was. That has to mean something...
...Oh yeah, I was talking about the times I was upset about those early rejections. I was going to bring it back around and make some comment about how it must be possible to grow more emotionally resilient, and sometimes the easiest way to illustrate this is by thinking back to something in the past that was so tragic at the time, but now is no big deal, but I completely forgot about them. That's kinda funny...
And what about the ending of that ten year relationship that I hardly had time to process when it happened? I'm genuinely okay about it now. For months, even a whole year afterwards, I was holding on to the idea of conversations that were never going to happen, wanting to resolve issues there was no hope for. I didn't even have the goal of getting the relationship back, but I had this pestering drive to clarify some point, to make some aspect of my experience known, to get something across... Today, however? Somehow, it is fine.
Don't expect every loss to fade into something that doesn't ever hurt again, but some of them will. For the others, I guess we adapt. If you're hurting right now, you're not alone. I feel for you, for whatever that is worth.
It's okay to sit with your feelings for a while, too. knowing something will eventually get better doesn't mean you should ignore what you're going through. After all, would you tell someone who's experiencing joy to get over it because some day they will feel pain again?
P.S.
I was hesitant to post this because I was worried that it makes me seem like I'm nothing but a sad guy, but that's not what I'm going for. It does happen to be the focus of this post, so it makes sense, but still makes me anxious, as if there's some kind of expectation to perform optimism for the reader's comfort.
Don't worry: good things have happened, too. Not every thing is bad. These things were just on my mind, is all. To my friend processing his own loss, you are on my mind, too.
wip
8-26-25
I think it could be fine if they stopped mass-producing mugs for a little while, to give people a chance to use up all the ones at the thrift stores.
Anyway, I think I will make a space on here to put sketches and other less finished art. For every Finished/polished artwork, there's a lot of small sketches and similarly unfinished stuff. I don't even know if "unfinished" is the word for it, because that seems to imply that some day it will be a completed, fully rendered, and fully realized piece, and that is just not always going to be the case. Sometimes I draw a Pokemon with a Sharpie or something, and that's as far as that will go. Sometimes I start something with the intention to go further with it, and then change my mind. No matter the reason that it doesn't become more, I still made the stuff, so maybe I might as well show some it.
An example:
I don't know if it's the kind of thing that anyone would be interested in seeing, but I also don't know if anyone is interested in anything. I'm probably just going to do it eventually.
Immortal son or time traveling daughter
8-25-25
One of the top moments is when you say something funny and your friend laughs. Somewhere inching in the direction of the other end of the spectrum is when you say something that you thought was mildly interesting and they say it was a waste of your time to have thought about it. You know, not devastating, but not great. At least I have an honest friend. (I didn't take it as mean-spirited, to be clear. It is really okay.)
Regardless, I have decided that both immortality and backwards time travel would be bad for the human psyche and our ability to cope with change.
Thanks for your attention to this matter.
the first entry...
8-24-25
I know there are more elegant ways to make a blog section, but that's for another time. Maybe some day I'll even use one of the many free services that already exist, but I liked it being under the same domain for some reason, so I'm going to try to make something I can integrate here. Or maybe this will be perfectly fine just like this. I'm sure I'll slowly chip away at it until I get something serviceable. If not, I'll do something else.
I'm not 100% sure what kind of stuff I'll post here yet, but I think it would be nice to have somewhere to put the things I write that are longer than a character limit on bluesky.