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yet here, laertes! aboard, aboard for shame! the wind sits in the shoulder of your sail, and you are stay'd for. there ... my blessing with thee! and these few precepts in thy memory look thou character. give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportion'd thought his act. be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; but do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatch'd, unfledg’d comrade. beware of entrance to a quarrel but, being in, bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee. give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement. costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; for the apparel oft proclaims the man; and they in france of the best rank and station are of a most select and generous chief in that. neither a borrower, nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. this above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. farewell; my blessing season this in thee!

Would Maya Angelou writhe with this unrelenting grief in my shoes? What enables a person to rise above themselves and provide inspiration to others? To continue beyond personal strife and affliction and become more than they are? "One day at a time", or so the cliché goes. "It will simply take time", they repeat. I am amazed I function at all. I get up and go to work. I somehow do just that very thing... live one day at a time... but to what end? I have a stack of letters and cards on my kitchen table, unopened, next to the items I've been meaning to mail people for months. I forget things regularly that I never had issue with before. Bills paid late or nearly, not because I can't afford to pay them, but because I simply don't realize they were to be paid. Home unkempt. Pets neglected. My own health slipping away... mentally long gone, physically each day. I think about things like eating better, exercising, setting goals, staying positive, being patient, having faith that perspective and understanding will come with healing. Ironically, all the while, speculating how splendid it would be to die in my sleep. I recently heard a story about a lady with a neurological disorder caused by a benign tumor whose growth had placed pressure on the segment of the brain controlling olfactory and related systems. She couldn't taste anything or smell anything. In her case, until the tumor was removed, she ate to survive, but found no pleasure or reason for doing so outside that necessity. My life itself is drastically similar in that I do things to pass the time between now and my inevitable end because, for lack of a better explanation, I can't stop eating. You follow? Books. I have books on loss and recovery, pain and grief, etc. They sit unread with a fine layer of dust upon their covers. I want so badly to have confidence in the ability of others to understand where I am... professionals, therapists, councilors, friends... but they can not. There is no getting from there to here without living it... and once you do, there is no going back. There are days when the winds are low and the strength of the castle walls I've build appears sufficient. I sit within and pretending there is warmth and I can feel something other than pain. There are days when the foundation heaves and the storm outside is to strong to ignore. There is a reason we've placed the words heart and wrenching together in description. I drove to work this morning barely able to see the road from the veritable river pouring down my face... my heart in the grasp of an old time clothes wringer. I continue to struggle with every day and yet progress has reached a steady state plateau. She is everywhere and nowhere, but remains my everything. The most wonderful gift ever bestowed from heaven, there can be no truer love. I miss you.

I wish I could tell you that time flies. The couple of weeks since I posted anything here seems like years. I've not been up to much. I eat, sleep, and work. Occasionally, I visit with local friends and such, but all these things are motions I do to pass the seconds on the clock. I don't particularly want to die, but I certainly have no desire to live either. My waking hours are filled with general apathy towards everything. I suppose I'm waiting for something... a sign, breakthrough, some clarity... anything. Some epiphany that will put perspective on my life and perhaps show me something I can find passion in once again. On the order of daily details, I've pretty much been operating within the status quo and flying under the proverbial radar. I was in a local electronics store returning a faulty DVD when someone brought in an unopened 60GB PS3. I impulse purchased it for the BluRay player sitting in its belly regardless of whether I were to play any games on it or not. I've never owned one of those console systems (ala Nintendo, PS, Xbox, ad nauseam) and I find the controllers quite overwhelming to manipulate... almost unenjoyable. Of course, children now-a-days come out of the womb knowing how to operate the 15 buttons and 2 sticks protruding from the little alien devices. I went to a comedy show. I spent a weekend with my mother. I have been utilizing my fireplace more often and attempting to get out on my motorcycle more. I try to plan to photograph something... anything. It doesn't always work. Because of the upgraded Flickr gift from Jim, I've been posting more archived crap there out of a mild sense of obligation. It's been both good and bad to go through old photos. Good because I engage myself mentally to get behind the camera, but bad because I care so little for so many of the frames I've made. Work has been busy... or rather, I've been busy with it. I want so strongly to go on vacation... to distance myself from environmental normality with hopes I might shift in some way. I would love to go to New Zealand as EL and I always wanted together, but it is such a distance that taking time off work to truly enjoy the trip is not practical at this time. I've thought of Europe, but I've been so many places there... where would I go? Perhaps Cambridge to visit Lisa or far north in frigid Scandinavia. I've always wanted to visit Sweden since my father's side of the family boated over as little as three generations ago. My mother's side of the family has some Swiss heritage and I could visit relatives in Switzerland... or my dear friends Urs and Sandra (and baby Aline). For me, my loss may as well have happened yesterday as the pain has never dulled. I think I just cope better with it as time goes by, but it catches me often and without warning. Maybe our recent trip to Switzerland might affect my enjoyment of returning alone. There are always destinations within the continental US to consider as well... options. I have plenty of vacation time to spend, I simply have operational constraints on how many consecutive days I can get approved. Ironically, if I ask for more than 5 business days, the request must be approved by the CEO of my corporation personally. Amazing. Of course, I could just simply not go anywhere. At the time of this writing, it appears that is the most likely conclusion. I'm sorry I've been aloof. I really have no intention to stop writing here. I just haven't been able to function well. I am not me. The weight crushing my heart is, at times, unbearable and I fear the wound will never heal. I am a shadow always near the sunlight, but never able to touch it.

"Do you remember the first kiss? Stars shooting across the sky To come to such a place as this You never left my mind I'm watching from the wall As in the streets we fight This world all gone to war All I need is you tonight And I draw a line To your heart today To your heart from mine A line to keep us safe All through the rising sun All through the circling years You were the only one Who could have brought me here"