The Friggin' Skeletons Won't Die

This will be short and totally not graphic, but it will help my readers (friends and family especially) understand what's up with me recently.

Some of you know that, aside from the loss of my wife, father and home within a one-year period, I also had some childhood trauma (the details of which I won't go into - those who know are supposed to know). Suffice to say, it's bad (like there's a good kind of trauma). The kind that can really do a number on you if not dealt with. This is all stuff that I'd worked on and gone to counseling over, and done really well - decades ago - squaring away. And I had squared it away (or thought I had), with the help of my wife and Best Friend (TM), Samantha.

But now with Samantha gone, and my father (the one other person I could talk to about absolutely everything because it had happened to him too) gone, I don't have an outlet, except for the counselor, which will work for the time being but obviously isn't the most ideal.

So, on the one hand, I've lost the two people in the world I absolutely didn't need to self-censor for, at a time when I really need to not have to self-censor. And since I process externally by actually "using my words" and verbalizing my thoughts, you can see this puts me in a bit of an uncomfy position.

Then we have the fact that because I'm more emotionally invested in this relationship than any since my two-decade relationship with Sam, some of these old skeletons are popping up from the dead and making me just a tad miserable. Because without the uncensored outlet, I tend to go quiet, brood, stew and internally beat myself up. And I know that's not the right way to heal, which is why I'm in counseling, and why I'm glad Raechelle really wants to be that Best Friend (TM), like I want to be for her. We're just not there yet.

It's nothing anybody needs to worry about. There's nothing wrong between me and my girl. It's just that we've gotten to the point of ripping off the old bandages and showing each other the scars (and I have some pretty big scars), and sometimes they didn't heal quite like you thought they did, if that makes sense.

So if you're in regular contact with me and feel that I've been a bit moody, distant, angry or in any way off-balance, that's why. And it will get better over time.

Moving on...