Surprise, Surprise - I'm alive.

It's been years so it felt like an update was in order. Life started life-ing and updating this fell by the wayside. 

My mom has been gone now for 5 years almost. When I look back, I wonder how time flew by so quickly. There has not been a day that has gone by that I haven't missed her. That I haven't wanted to call her and talk to her about everything going on. 

I also haven't released any new books since 2022. I've been slowly writing for years, but music was my focus for many years after she passed and I let writing take a back seat. It's rough because I do miss it. I do miss the community I built. And these people are still there, still silently rooting me on. But now I worry that anything I come out with won't be better than what I've released in the past and I can't take the idea of disappointing anyone. That is hard to get over. 

For anyone still stalking my blog, I'm alive. I'm okay. Still trying my best to master this thing called life...still falling short most of the time. 

I am still in a tremendous amount of debt which affects so much of my life. I'm a prisoner to two jobs still and frequently end up working more than 70 hours a week. It is mentally and physically exhausting. I can't wait until the day when my debt is finally paid off and I can stop working so god damn hard. 

I'm the biggest I've ever been. I think it is mostly because I'm confined to a desk or chair for my two jobs and when I finally have downtime I'm so exhausted I can't imagine doing much else or it's too late for me to go to the gym. One of the perks of my job is free gym use, but I have only utilized that a handful of times since I started. As you can imagine, this has brought on it's own bout of insecurities. But at some point, I can't be full of excuses. I need to be full of action. 

So I just turned 40 years old. I own a house with my two siblings, but I can't live in said house. I am in thousands of dollars of tax debt...chipping away at it little by little monthly. I have an exorbanent amount of credit card debt. I still have an extensive amount of school loans I'm paying off. I have a 401k again after so many years without one and I'm only contributing a mere 2% until I can afford to do more. I will have a match from the company in a few months so at least there is that. I definitely am failing at this game called life. 

All of this to say that I'm vowing right here and right now that I'm going to be out of this debt hole within 5 years. I am going to pay off and cancel multiple credit cards, I'm going to pay off my tax debt, and hopefully not still be working my second job by then. My goal is by 45, I want to be working 1 job and 1 job only. Of course my ultimate dream has always been to write full time. That is going to take a lot of work and energy. And I'm willing to do it, but I need to be more dilligent. 

I have been single now for almost two years. I am super lonely and pretty convinced my person doesn't exist. Or karma is really having a field day with me. In any case, I don't have kids and I don't have a partner so my biggest fear may materialize in 20 some years and I may just end up dying alone. I hope I'm wrong, but I've been looking for my person for so long I'm pretty sure fate just wants me to be depressed and alone. 

This all sounds like a woe is me post but I promise it's not that. It's just that I've had to become comfortable with the uncomfortable. And you know what? I think I'm doing a pretty damn good job at it.