Another Auld Lang Syne

On New Years Day I spent the day watching old Twilight Zones on SyFy.  I happened to notice one of my journals on a table. In the front were the dates 2008-2011. On New Years Day 2008,  I spent the day watching old Twilight Zones on SyFy- then again in 2010 and 2011. I didn't bother to write anything on January 1st 2009, but I'm pretty sure I watched Twilight Zone all day. I noted in 2008 that I had to get Kleenex for two episodes: Kick the Can- where the old folks in a nursing home dare to go outside and play and they become young once again and The Hunt- the old mountain man and his coon dog who die in an accident and walk Eternity Road looking for the entrance to a Heaven that will allow the dog to enter with him. This year I made it through most of  The Hunt before I sniffled a little and I didn't even bother with  Kick the Can. I suppose like everything else familiarity breeds contempt, or in my case numbness. Honestly, I was trying all day to come to terms with the fact that my life has become pretty much a predictable decline since becoming sick fourteen years ago. So much has changed but my illness has not. I now have a name for one of my "dark passengers" (Dexter folks will get it) , Hyperadrenergic Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia or HPots. I also battle Chronic Fatigue/Firbromyalgia.  I thank God for the strength to still work at this point. I've never been one to throw in the towel without a helluva fight.
One thing about so much alone time is the tendency to dig up bones....you remember the Randy Travis song- "exhuming things that's better left alone, I'm resurrecting memories of a love that's dead and gone".. I did some digging of my own and found out that someone I once loved very much had passed away in December 2012  at the age of 63 to Alzheimers. Even though I had not seen or spoken to him for almost thirty years, the impact he had on my life cannot be denied and reading his obituary sent me into a place I haven't been for many years and I felt that "old familiar pain".  He taught me so many things, both good and painful. I was 22 and very impressionable and I thought he was the most worldly man I had ever met.  In my innocence, I  believed if someone said they loved you they did. All I knew for sure was I loved him and I made a huge sacrifice for the short lived love affair.  It crumbled like so many dry leaves in my hand and blew away on  New Years Eve 1980, leaving me alone, ashamed  and devastated. But out of the ashes of  this relationship I began a path for my life I would have never traveled with the National Park Service had  I not met him. I now have lifelong friendships and many wonderful memories due to our chance encounter on a snowy day in March.  It saddens me to think that a disease that steals your memories, may have taken all of his. 


                                                   RIP W.J.C

                 This is for you my old friend.... You forever changed my life.