Of course, if you asked, I would have told you I was a “realist”. That’s the term that someone uses to dance around the fact that they’re really a self-hating pessimist.

Of course, if you asked, I would have told you I was a “realist”. That’s the term that someone uses to dance around the fact that they’re really a self-hating pessimist.
Worrying never did anything for me. All it did was make the moments before uncertainty worse by filling me with impending dread.
Suddenly all the corny nonsense you were forced to do for the sake of family unity has become a source of humiliation again.
I forced myself to ride the exercise bike for at least 30 minutes and did a series of weights afterwards. With each rep, I seethed with anger.
All the “Just For Men” hair dye commercials and black birthday balloons with tombstones on them can’t shake me.
You stop caring about what people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
Enlightened as I was, there was nowhere further to go. I had been a horrible person, needed to repent, and that was the end of the story.
Chris’s death devastated me. Even now as I write this 13 years later, I have a hard time expressing my feelings about it.