Everything ends.

But this is how it all began a year ago yesterday.



It's so hard for me to believe it, but there it is. There wasn't much fanfare, and no foreshadowing, and I had absolutely no clue where it was all going to lead. I've been building up to this anniversary post in the last little while (can you tell?) and now that it's here, I'm not sure what will happen by the end of it. It should come as no surprise if you've read other posts that I'm a very stream of conscious writer, so why should I be anything but that here one year later? But the truth is, I've been working this, planning this, contemplating this post from the moment I started writing this particular series. I decided, some time mid way through the second post that on the anniversary of this blog, I would end it all, put [the act of just being here] to rest, and allow a new chapter of my life to start. I thought a lot about what Bono said at the end of the tour for The Joshua Tree, when he told the audience at that last concert that the band was going away for awhile to "dream it all up again." That was the end of the 80s, and when they re-emerged in the 90s they came back in a whole new light. I thought that I should let this blog go the way of dreams, float away into memories, and when it returned in some form or another, it would be different, a new dream.

Then this afternoon I was talking to someone and explaining to them what I was going to do here, and I felt sad about just letting it end. I have been so negligent in my posting as of late, and have been enjoying this build up to a farewell, that I've sort of renewed my enthusiasm for writing it, just like creating it helped renew something in my life that was missing. I visited the site myself tonight, surfed to my own page and saw that I had a couple of nice comments on the last post, from people who don't know me personally, but now, by reading this, know me better than some of the people in my inner circle. Why does it have to end, I started thinking? Why should I let it end? I was still contemplating that while I started writing this post (like I said I don't even know how this will end). Maybe it will never end, maybe I'll just keep writing this post and telling you what I'm thinking forever and ever and not stop for fear that when I do stop I'll lose something forever, something special, something that's a part of me.

But that's silly isn't it? This experience will always be a part of me. I will always have it with me, as as long as I don't hit delete, it can exist out here forever (or as long as the servers are up and running). Yeah, everything ends... but nothing ever stops being. Matter, energy... it's all floating around the universe recycling itself, becoming part of something new, all the while taking with it a part of what it once was. So even if this blog ends tonight, it will exist in some form or another in its successor. Won't it?

What if I'm just romanticizing this whole "dream it all up again" scenario? Maybe I don't have it in me to create another version of this blog. Now come on, Jim, that's silly. Look at yourself...you've been successfully recreating YOU for a year now, and that's more damn work than writing a stupid web page ever was. You can do it. Let it go... and see what comes back to you.

It's fear of the unknown, isn't it, that holds us to our safety blankets, our security shields. Is that what death is like, letting go of everything you know to be true, to face what you do not know?

Shall I go on? Or am I just beginning to repeat myself?

To be, or not to be, that IS the question...

This new partnership of emotion and sensibility would be harder to manage than most of the difficulties I had faced in my life so far.

I don't think you just wake up one morning and realize that you're life has slipped out of your own hands. I think you see it slip away all the time, but feel powerless to do anything about it. As more and more slips away, more and more of your power to control it does, too. It's momentum that gets it moving away from you, and like any locomotive that's picking up speed, it takes the force of a Superman to stop it once it does. The other option is to let nature take it's course and let the momentum dissipate. Or the other option, I guess, is to redirect that momentum and move it in another direction. Does any of this make sense?

Sometime after my illness last summer, I decided that I needed to redirect some energy in my life, seeing as how I wasn't feeling like Superman, and my patience to sit and wait it out had been maxed out. The problem was, I really didn't know what it was I wanted to control, or where I was going in life... but I just wanted to be part of my journey, rather than an observer. So, I decided to start a blog. No, I didn't say, "hey, I should start a blog to let the world know how messed up and helpless I feel," it was more like, "hey, I think it would be cool to design a website and post some comments and see where this whole thing takes me." And so I did, and so here you are know, almost a year to the date that [the act of just being here] went live to 'net. I won't bore you with technical details, but suffice to say I found some software to help me on my way, and I also found some helpful blog pals to answer some of my neophyte questions, some of which are still here with me today (thank you, Matt). I learned how to alter HTML code, CSS style sheets, and how to motivate myself to write again. None of my posts are going to be Pulitzer nominated or anything, but there have definitely been ones I'm proud of: my reaction to the movie Crash; Why I Hate Christmas parts 1, 2, and 3; and the ever popular 100 Things about me post. Along the way I've documented the arrival of my kittens, Rufus and Tai Chi, and shared with you how Rufus inspired me to write my first children's book, Rufus Is A Doofus, which is being shopped around to publishers as I write. Besides all that, though, writing this blog has made me question myself very regularly. Mostly in private, sometimes publicly. There was one post that never made it on here about the appropriateness of the blog's name: for most of my life I've just been engaged in the act of being present, but not participating in what was going on around me. Writing here has most definitely been about participating, because I soon realized I couldn't just write about observations and notions--I would have to write about experiences and doing. If I wanted to document my life, then I needed to have one. It may not seem like much, but for me, some of the things I've done over the last year are big steps--a new day job, pursuing my dream of writing professionally.. my renewed efforts to improve my health/weight, some financial details I'm undertaking of which I haven't talked about here, strengthening bonds with family and friends... the act of just living. How novel, eh?

...So now the real question is, when I look at the death of Six Feet Under and use it as a mirror, what do I see of myself?

In stark contrast to death, I'm seeing life in me. For awhile now, I think I have been the epitome of the walking dead. When my dad dies in 1999, my life took a completely different direction, and it happened relatively quickly.
September 1998 I started a new job in Waterloo, Ontario which I soon discovered I hated, and I desperately wanted to get out of it. After month's of agonizing over work, my then-girlfriend suggested I apply to teacher's college, and with a week to go before the application deadline I submitted my forms. February 14, 1999, said girlfriend ended said relationship (yes, Valentine's day--how sweet, eh?) In March of that sae year, my dad and I have a discussion, basically saying that if I don't get accepted to any of the teacher's colleges, I could move back home and live with him and mom and decide what I want to do next--without any need to get a job or work; what he was saying was come bak home, I don't have log to live and I want tot spend it with you. April of 1999 I find an envelope in my mailbox a day ahead of schedule telling me I've been accepted to teacher's college, and I break down and cry, knowing that I will be moving home very soon. May 7, 1999, I am home with my family... August 7, 1999 my father dies after a three-year battle with cancer... September 7, 1999 I start my first day of teachers college... October 7, 1999 I get ready to say good-bye to my sister as she prepares to move to Kentucky to start her new career.
So you see how so much change in so little time back then seemed like a new start, a new beginning, a new life. It was truly, but like all new things, eventually they become old and stale. The momentum that propelled me forward then was the unknown--I didn't know what was happening, but it was happening whether I wanted it to or not. So the last few years have become stagnant in that regard for me. There is no "unknown" pushing me forward. My life has become predictable, and somewhat stagnant, and overall safe. And that safeness has done a number on my mental state. I say that because even though you feel like things are safe, your actions can still cause some pretty messed up things to happen. So even in all the "safeness" and sameness, I was fucking things up for myself pretty badly... and desperately trying to hide it all from the outside world (got to keep up appearances, right?). Suddenly, I started feeling just like I did when I started that ill-fated job in 1998: I was a chain-smoking, caffeine-addicted fool stumbling through life trying to numb myself to pain and self-humiliation. I attempted to make myself happy by spending money and surrounding myself with objects of worth to make my life seem worth-while, and whether consciously or not, I was blaming the people and the relationships in my life for holding me back and oppressing me (as opposed to taking responsibility for my own happiness). I suffered a mental breakdown on the night I moved into my house, and continued to have smaller, but no less scary breakdowns and panic attacks for the next two and a half years. My health was a roller coaster ride ready to fly off the rails, and somehow, near the end of it all, I almost had a heart attack. It turned out to be pericarditis, a viral infection, but in my head, it will always be my heart attack--because after that episode, it seemed like my heart and my head started working together. This new partnership of emotion and sensibility would be harder to manage than most of the difficulties I had faced in my life so far.

If you've been reading this blog for a while now, you know that some months back, I decided to watch the Six Feet Under, from the first season all the way through to the last episode, which aired in June 2005. On Sunday, August 15, 2006, at approximately 11:08 PM, in the basement of my home in Welland, Ontario, Canada, alone but not lonely, my personal journey with the Fisher family came to an end unceremoniously, just as it had begun. That is not to say that the lasting impact of my Six Feet Under experience is unremarkable--quite the contrary.

Way back on March 1, 2006, I posted the following:
I'm going to die. Someday. So are you. And when we're gone, our absence will be felt by others, whether we actually had any connection with them in our life or not. And while we're off pondering the meaning of our existence and whether we did anything worth while we were alive, those people will wonder if the tie they chose to wear to the funeral service goes with their shirt. Or whether the cemetery is going to be muddy and should they wear their good shoes. Or, after reading the obituary page, they may wonder if they had Chemistry with us in grade 11 or English Lit. in 12. See, the truth is, no one is going to question whether your life was worth living but you. And to wait and do that after your dead is missing the boat. You're better off doing the things you want to do while you're here, when you have the chance. It's lazy to turn your life over to fate and destiny. Nothing is predetermined, but everything is pre-connected; you chose which connections to take. We blame others for our choices when we don't like them, or worse yet, let others make the choices for us, so we never have to take responsibility for our own actions. In a way, we're the living dead while we're here on earth; we only fully understand what it means (meant) to be alive after we're gone...
Back at that point, midway through the series, I knew where everything would eventually end up. There were really no surprises for me as I sat and watched that last episode tonight--as a matter of fact, no real surprises through the last few episodes. I'm not one to spoil anything for people who may or may not want to experience it themselves, but suffice to say that the show whose goal and objective, as described by creator Allan Ball, is to look at the experience of death in the open and in reality should end by embracing death by dying itself, only makes sense. Sure you can say, "but Jim, the show ended a full year before you actually watched it, of course you knew what was going to happen," but the truth of the matter was, I couldn't care less about the outcome of the character's lives... what started as a way to kill time when I was feeling ill became a mirror to me and my own existence. Seven year's ago this month, I buried my father after a three-year battle with cancer. I lost the man who gave me life; I lost my toughest critic, my fiercest enemy, and my hero. And I lost the chance to say and do all the things I never did when he was alive. I lost the chance to let him know the real me, and I lost the innocence of my actions, and the secrets of my life. His death took all of that from me, because now, someone else knew the real me. In the very first episode, Ruth Fisher calls herself a whore because she's been unfaithful to her husband for many years, and now in death he finally knows it. I felt that way when my dad died, now he knew me, and I couldn't hide, or justify or explain it away. He knew everything, and I, in grief, shock, and deep emotional pain, was powerless to stop it, and scared of confronting it. That's why I really think, like I said in that March post, that death makes you question "the validity of the choices you've made in your own life, and point out how flawed your own perception of yourself is by reflecting your very existence back to you."

So now the real question is, when I look at the death of Six Feet Under and use it as a mirror, what do I see of myself?

Okay, third time's the charmer, right? I've been trying to make this post all morning, twice attempting to o it from my new laptop while sitting in my comfy living room. Can't do it: something keeps crashing RapidWeaver on the laptop, and I lose the whole post. So here goes the abbreviated version of the abbreviated version or the original post I started to make over an hour ago:

I love the new laptop (except when programs stop responding) and Photo Booth is one of its coolest features. There's a small camera/webcam embedded in the frame of the laptop just above the screen that lets you take pictures with some fun effects. You can check it some pictures I took this morning by going to this Photo Booth Photo Album.

I know I've not been posting here as regularly as I have been, and the other day I was thinking about this blog, and about what I wanted to get out of it when I started it almost a year ago (I was actually developing and working on the blog a year ago, and it went live on the 28th of August 2005). It's been a great ride and I'm glad some people have come along with me. I'm beginning to rethink the future of this site, and don't have any clear plans just yet, but I hope you'll consider sticking around into the next phase...

Last thing I posted was my concern for my sister and brother-in-law who are travelling to London later this week. Were all a bit nervous about it, but I guess we can't keep living in fear. Is this just a sign of the times, or is it just a different kind of threat than in the past? Sure we're not worried about things like the plague anymore, but it seems like every generation has its cross to bear... is terrorism threats going to be ours? And AIDS? And cancer? And global catastrophes?

I've been without hot water since Friday. At first I thought the pilot light had gone out, but it turns out my water tank sprung a leak. They told me a new tank would be delivered and installed on Sunday morning. When the workers got here, they realized the tank they had wouldn't fit in my space, so now I have to wait for them to come and put the new tank in tomorrow, between 9 AM and 1 PM. I've learned that hot water is a luxury I won't take for granted anymore, and that getting up at six without so much as a coffee to drive to my mother's house to shower is a pain in the ass. I've also learned the fine art of sponge bathing regularly throughout the day.
One more sleep 'til my computer comes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My new iPod arrived right on time last Thursday, and the MacBook laptop is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday evening... I can't wait! I've decided to use the iPod as a back-up/warehouse of as much of my music as I can fit on it--it's a 60GB, which holds 15 000 songs, and I'm up to 1 300 so far! There's no video or photos on it yet, either, but I have been very diligent about making sure that album art has been included with each track I've added (which I think is my favourite feature of all).
As it's a holiday weekend in Canada, I've been finding myself rather busy, which has kept my mind off regular posts here (and I guess I should admit that a lot of my time has been taken up with my new music blog which is going very well so far) but I will keep you updated as best I can. I hope all the Canadian readers have had a great long weekend so far. Stay tuned, more news from the front coming soon...