Rough.

I’m having a rough time.

In the last four years, I’ve seen my music career crash three times: the first time from the Covid lockdown, the second when I got Long Covid and the third when tendinitis and arthritis forced me to stop playing guitar.

I’ve had to acknowledge that most of the friends I’ve come to know as a result of my travels, I probably won’t see in person again unless they can afford to travel to me.

I’ve had to acknowledge that in order to begin to heal from the pain caused by my association with my local synagogue community, I finally had to resign from that community, with no clear plan to find or join another.

In the last year, I was compelled to file for disability, a process without a clear outcome or even a timeline.

In the last five months, I discovered I’ve had ADHD my whole life, begun to unmask, and have had to confront previously unacknowledged childhood trauma.

I’ve also had to live with the knowledge that my depression diagnosis and a decade of treatment was actually misdiagnosed ADHD.

So here I am, struggling mightily to stay interested in life at a time when cumulative knock-downs are having a pretty serious effect on my ability to stay functional and engaged.

I’m not much fun to be with right now. 

I can tell it’s begun to wear on my Sweetie, because she’s beginning to buckle and close up under the stress of carrying us financially and my being in so much pain and struggle. She insists we’re fine, but I feel like a burden and I suspect she feels that way, too.

There is no clear end in sight.

I’m sad and angry and depressed and lonely and horribly unmotivated these days. The cats have been my best companions, full of affection and purrs and totally lacking in judgement.

I’ve been seeing a counselor but honestly I don’t think it’s making a huge difference. The fact is that I feel like I’m in a slow freefall with no idea of what might be next, and nothing that I’m really looking forward to. I feel cheated out of so much and have no remedy for it.

It’s an awful place to be.