Hey, folks.
Nothing much to report.
Not very many people read anymore anyway. Not that i blame them. I don’t write much anymore, and what I do write isn’t useful or positive. It’s… unhappy.
Not very incentivising to read.
And today is just more of the same. I should just stop writing altogether.
I’m more stressed and overwhelmed than i think perhaps I’ve ever been in my life.
Or maybe I just have a short memory.
I’m struggling pretty much all the time–significantly struggling. I’m always on the edge of breakdown. I’m overwhelmed to the point of paralysis.
It’s a major victory to get anything accomplished.
I’m not depressed. I’m just… burnt out.
Of life.
Not enough hope to sustain the push.
Happiness requires hope. My hope, which once was a raging fire, feels like the weakest of flickering flames.
Even the thought of letting that hope grow brings fear. It’s not worth the risk. It always ends in devastating disappointment.
And at this point, I’m a disappointment to myself, too.
I feel like my life has been a waste. I’ve never had the courage to just let go of the financial fears that keep me locked into holding out for security before I go out and spend my life helping people like i dream of doing: I just keep working and working to get financially independent because then i won’t have to worry about losing my opportunity to serve everyone because I’ve run out of money.
Yes, I get closer and closer to that financial goal, but it’s still a very long way off, and time races forward at breakneck speed, and at 42, the two biggest desires of my life, desires that seemed so simple, to be married and have a family and to spend my life serving people… I’ve failed to accomplish either.
I’ve lost faith in myself. I’ve lost respect for myself. I’m a disappointment to myself.
And without hope, at this point, I don’t really see life getting better.
I’m so tired… tired of life.
…
In other news…
- I’ve been working a lot online lately. I’ve almost doubled my March online earnings, and I still have a good chunk of the month left to earn more. It’s really hard to gauge how much time I’m actually spending working, so I don’t know what I’m making per hour.
- We had the fathers and sons event and also the family spring social at the deck area that I’ve worked so hard on. It’s still not done yet, but it’s decent, and it worked just fine, so that was good. I mowed a little bit the day before, and i pulled some weeds and whatnot and cleaned a bunch of stuff up. And it was fun to see the little kids at their own mini picnic table that I bought a few days ago. It even had an umbrella, though the sun was down far enough it didn’t help.
- I got a load of wood chips dumped for Liz, which… turned out to be a nightmare. The ground was soft enough that the trailer and truck got stuck, so I couldn’t pull away as I was dumping. It ended up taking like two or three hours to unload the trailer by hand. Gratefully, Rafe and Rhett helped. Rafe was a lifesaver.
- Had a good long chat with Liz the other day. We’re all going through so much right now. We’re all drowning.
- More thinning out and packing, but I’m so overwhelmed and paralyzed that I’m getting only a very little done. I got a brand new refrigerant canister sold, so that’s one more thing down.
- Lots of decisions still to make that are unmade. It’s hard for me to make decisions with so much uncertainty and no clue what I even want.
- Leg has been a lot worse, but I don’t think it’s the bone. I think it’s from walking on it gingerly for a month. I think that’s put odd pressures on different parts of the leg that aren’t used to those pressures, and the result is a lot of pain from parts of my leg that have nothing to do with the break. But today i tested that hypothesis. I did a lot of work today, putting all my weight on the leg while working with the mulch mess and loading up wood and branches and whatnot. I figured that maybe if I started walking on it normally instead of gingerly, then maybe that would actually resolve the new pain issues. So far, the results are encouraging. 🤞
I’m gonna sign off for the night…
~ stephen
Lift the World 
still reading. Just not commenting. You will get through this
Thx 🙂
I love you Stephen.
A lot of times I don’t read because instead of a daily post, it’s silence and then two weeks at once for two weeks ago, so none of it is actually how you are doing now. I’m happy that today’s post is for yesterday and therefore helps me know how you’re doing now!
I don’t know what to say except I love you and I have hope and faith in you. Most of the last year and a half, I had lost hope in myself, my life, and everything else, too. Utterly. Excruciatingly. Desperately and despairingly. I pray that you will find means (or receive means?) to recover. I pray that you will have insights that you need. I pray that you will receive the love that’s offered to you, that you will allow our imperfectly offered love to penetrate. That you will feel our imperfectly offered hope to rest upon you and sink in. Stephen, you yourself are a wonderful man. Go forward with that confidence.
Trauma is devastating: physical trauma, spiritual trauma, emotional trauma. It’s all devastating. May you feel all of us hoping for you, reaching out to you, wanting to engage with you, finding tremendous and extraordinary value in you.
May you find renewal in the idea that the two best times to plant a tree are 20 years ago and today. There is no way to undo the past, but that doesn’t have to make the future a wasteland. Plant a spiritual tree of Stephen. I believe in you. I love you.