Sometimes loss may be a positive thing. If you’re an athlete, for example, and your team loses, you learn from any mistakes, regroup, practice harder and come back better. Sometimes loss can be a proverbial bullet dodged. I’ve lost the bid on projects before to find out later that the client would have been a […]
The Essentials
Kind of glad this Christmas came and went without a lot of fanfare. It’s the first Christmas since my dad’s passing and that is, of course, going to take some getting used to. Shortly, I’m going to be coming up on 4 years since Mario passed away as well. As the years roll on, it’s […]
Obsidian
The dictionary definition of obsidian is, “a hard, dark, glasslike volcanic rock formed by the rapid solidification of lava without crystallization”. It’s one of my favorite rocks and always has been. I remember first encountering it when I was about 7 and I was on vacation with my parents around Mammoth in California one summer. […]
Winter Break
2024 is rapidly coming to a close. It’s been a difficult one and usually around this time I start reflecting on the year and looking forward to the next one. I also often take a break during the holidays to work on my own business and get some end-of-the-year downtime. Today, I’ll be driving Mario’s […]
“Uncage the Soul”
This week, a local artist I know lost her son to cancer. I had been watching his story with the disease unfold for a couple years. At one point in time he owned a video production company called, Uncage the Soul (the phrase was apparently one he used to sign correspondences while he was young […]
Time Marches On, Again
Another Thanksgiving down and this one was an oddball one. My mom is still slowing getting her mobility back, so she opted out. Mario’s dad had a cold, so he opted out. My dad passed away over the summer, so this marks the first year of his absence. I still cooked and a friend of […]
Sometimes you choose them and sometimes they choose you.
More than once in the past week I’ve said to myself, Mario would totally laugh if he would see FOUR cats in the house. I remember when we adopted Hathor and Juno (we gave them those names, their shelter names were not fitting at all) and Mario said something along the lines of, our limit […]
Drifting Gloomily Through Time
I’ve had yet another difficult week (2024’s theme really does seem to be “personally difficult things”). My mom has what we think is a sciatica flair up. While she claims she’s not like my dad in being stubborn, she very much IS. She refused to actually go to the doctor about it, putting me in […]
Misdirected Focus
Since my dad’s passing this July, I initially didn’t have a lot of time to think and review my feelings about it all because I was helping my mom. I think scattering his ashes at sea mid October really kind of locked the reality in that he’s gone. And consequently, I’ve had more time to […]
The Day of the Dead
November 1st is a day when a number of different cultures honor their dear, departed loved ones. The most widely known of these celebrations occurs in Mexico and is called El Dia de Los Muertos — The Day of the Dead. Similar celebrations occur during the first few days of November in Guatemala, El Salvador, […]
As Time Marches On
Every now and then I’ll think about all the things in the world that have transpired since Mario made his exit from this life, big things and small. Part of his depression always included all the bad stuff happening in the world that an individual has little control over. No amount of trying to convince […]
Incomplete Grief
I recently came across the term, incomplete grief. The definitions of incomplete grief vary widely from not confronting or not willing to confront feelings of grief to feeling stuck in time and unable to grieve properly. I feel like a lot of us compartmentalize grief—put it up on a shelf so we can attend to […]