Somebody say a prayer for me
‘Cause the pills ran out and I still can’t sleep
Somebody send a word upstairs
‘Cause the bar shut down and I’m God knows where
Forced to knock on Heaven’s door
‘Cause mine ain’t workin’ anymore
Somebody say a prayer for me
All I’m askin’ for is a little mercy

I’ve been a bit restless the last couple days. Grief is a strange thing and for me it comes in heavy waves. The other day it hit me, not for the first time, it hits me randomly, but it hit me that Presley isn’t coming back. I’ve had this feeling a few times since I put her down and it’s like that feeling I described recently of wanting to go home and not having a place to go that fills that desire.

I’ve been thinking about her a lot so today I hiked one of the last places we hiked together, and I sat exactly where she stood when I took her sweet smiling photo. I sat there lost in space for what felt like forever. It was the first time since I started going to church I really thought about harming myself. I was sitting there with my pocket knife in my hand just hanging onto her tag I wear. I’ll bring some of her ashes with me down to North Carolina this fall. It’s only fair that she also gets to spend some time on a 50 acre farm. Heck if she was still here she’d be coming with me.

I went to that spot hoping to feel closer to her, and hoping to feel better, but I didn’t. I just left sweaty and pissed off. Not just mad that she’s gone, but mad at life. As I hiked back down I took a different trail and it was all burned. Some sort of brush fire had taken place since the last time I was there a couple years ago and it didn’t help what I was already feeling. We are living on a planet not with it, and we’re destroying it. At the trail head was a poster, asking for help finding the person who set the fire. Turns out it was arson. Someone intentionally burned acres and acres of woods. Trails in a reservation that’s been there longer than any of us walking the earth today. Why? Why would you want to ruin arguably the only good thing we have these days?

When I got back to my car and I was driving home I found myself getting irrationally mad at little things. For a lot of my younger years, teens and early 20’s, I had a horrible temper, but as I’ve gotten older.. Not many things really make me mad. This was anger directed at something I couldn’t control though. I wasn’t mad because I missed a turn and the GPS took me down a bunch of dead end streets. Don’t get me wrong that was annoying, but I was mad that my dog was gone, that I don’t like life, that I’m not happy.

You know someone recently said I’m drastically changing who I am.. Maybe that’s true. Part of this spending time fishing, and getting ready to hunt in the fall is part of something bigger. Spending more time doing things that make me happy. For most of my adult life I ignored doing things that make me happy and instead worked. I thought my value as a person came from how hard I worked. It doesn’t. My value as a person also doesn’t come from what any other person thinks. It comes from me, deep, deep, down in me.

I am changing who I am, and I’m going to continue to change who I am for a couple of simple reasons. Most people fear change, they fear it because of rejection and judgment mostly.. according to chatGPT at least.

Nothing changes if nothing changes. If you’re not happy in life and you don’t change, you’ll never be happy in life. It’s no secret I’d like to move to the south. It’s part of the reason I’m going to North Carolina. I’ll also visit Tennessee. Those are places I’m interested in living in. The south has this weird charm about it. It seems like a slower life, and that’s what I’m after. When you think about the south you think about sweet tea and rocking chairs on a front porch. You think about little family traditions and slang that doesn’t make sense to a northerner like me. I like all that, it’s different, it’s interesting.

I think the idea of this being a drastic change isn’t necessarily inaccurate, but people move to different parts of the country all the time. It’s not like I’m gonna move to the south and suddenly I’m whatever stereotype you’d like to say about the folks down there. It’s also not like moving there means I have to stay. Maybe I move hate it, and come right back home.

When I talked to my therapist about it she told me I should go. “Go down there and see if it’s what you’re looking for, maybe you’ll find some southern belle and never come back, but you can’t continue to live your life for other people” She’s right.

The only reason I’ve stayed in Massachusetts this longs is because for 6 years I thought the person I was gonna marry was here, and then I didn’t leave because my dad’s sick and I’ll feel guilty if i’m some place else and something happens to him. I tell my dad to move to florida constantly because he goes down every year and it makes him happy. My therapist said “So it’s ok for him to live his life but you can’t live yours?”

She dropped the hard hitters this week. She’s right. I don’t have anything here that needs me to stay here. My dog’s gone. I’m single. I don’t own a house anymore.

I’ve caused enough trouble in Massachusetts. Leaving is the least I can do.

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.