It's hard to write with people around and the TV blaring, but writing I am nonetheless. It's the end of this year. This year of 2007. It started out kind of shitty and just went down hill from there in many ways. It also started out kind of shitty and went uphill too.

The good stuff that started out shitty was that I got sick and was near death and I finally got serious and got healthy. Got my blood sugar down to something normal and took away my risk of dying from diabetes related shit. I quit smoking for several months but started back up when some shit happened to Sue that was majorly stressful. I am waiting to get the flu again like last time and quit again. I lost 65 pounds in 07. I had already lost about 45 or 50 pounds to begin with, so by the time October rolled around, I had lost a total of 115 pounds in 18 months.

I also managed to get my hernia repaired, which has been a double edged sword, both good and bad, but mostly very good. I also found an anti-aging doctor in the area who put me on bio-identical hormones and just wrote me my first script for HGH. I'll be starting on that in a few weeks. Wish me luck.

The bad shit was that I lost my best friend, business partner, the person I loved more than life it's self and would have died for to defend and help, Sue got stabbed in the back by a psycho fuck Nazi Christian which cost us thousands of dollars, my cousin Suzie died, and then the next week Marty died. Amazingly I continued to lose weight despite all the stress going on this year, up until Marty got sick and we started eating where ever while having to deal with having to go back and forth to the hospital for those 5 weeks. I also slowed down because of the recovery phase of the surgery. In fact, I gained 9 pounds back, which honestly sucks in a way. I have learned the hard way that I just can't eat out or eat on the run, stuffing my face with what ever I can find in the kitchen that is quick and easy. I have to eat the way my body needs me to eat or I will gain weight. One thing I can say that is positive is that I thought I had gained 30 pounds because that is what it felt like to me. A quick trip to the doctor this week confirmed that I had indeed only gained 9 pounds since my last visit 7 weeks before. So I am good with that, at least it was only 9 pounds. It could have been my worst fear and really been 30 pounds.

We are sitting here in the living room watching TV tonight on Marty's new furniture. He just bought it when he moved here in October. It's so new that the love seat still had the tags on it. We packed up Marty and put his life in boxes, then moved it all here to go through at a later date. Marty in a box. That's not a joke, that's an observation of the saddest magnitude. The more you go through what was left of his world, the more you see what a great man he really was. Yesterday, as I was locking up his apartment, after the last stitch of furniture was out of there and everyone was loading up the truck, I paused for a moment. I could feel him there all around me, my heart was heavy and I felt so sad, in such mourning for all that has transpired in the last 7 weeks. It was one of the hardest things I ever did, shutting that door and walking away from there for the last time. It felt like I was shutting the door on Marty forever, like I was walking away from him and all that he was.

There are no words right now to describe the grief in this home. I can't even begin to be able to grasp what Sue is going through. If I hurt this bad, how much deeper is the pain in her heart? I don't want to know from first had experience and yet, I know that my time is coming too. I luckily have siblings, so I won't have to go through this alone, I hope. Dad is MIA right now, no one has heard from him since before Thanksgiving. He did not send his regular Christmas card with small gift inside this year to any of us kids. I have been so snowed under with dealing with Marty that I haven't had the time to deal with what has happened to Dad. I wrote my brother a letter asking him what he thinks we should do, but even he hasn't responded. So now I am at a loss, Dad is in Las Vegas, I am sitting here broke in Arkansas from burying Marty in Florida.

Anyway, I don't usually reflect much when a new year rolls around on the Gregorian calendar. Time and space is an illusion anyway, but this year, the big lessons I have been presented with started this very day, this very night in 2006. It seems like a thousand years ago that New Years Eve last year. And I guess in my heart it is, a million light years away from where I am now in my life. My heart is heavy with intense grief right now, but I know these are just lessons that I am learning from and will grow from as I assimilate all that has transpired in this last year.

All in all, life is good enough, I just wish that I didn't feel such grief right now. I wish that Marty hadn't left us. I wish I knew how to change the events of these last few months and make it all come out differently. But I can't, I can do nothing but grieve and heal now, and do what I need to do to help Sue through her grief and come into a healing of her own in time. Like Curtis said, be her rock, as I always am.

Happy New Year everyone. May the wind be at your back and the road rise to meet you. May you be blessed always in all that you put your hand to.....

Love,

J