Going home will be very different this year

Somewhere in the middle of the plague I thought to myself: "There are just some relationships that aren't going to survive this."

And that's OK.

You see, whether we want to admit it or not, everyone was a little crazy even before the apocalypse.  Then 2020 left no one unscathed.  Which means everyone's crazy either went up a few notches, or evolved into something else.  Eventually you reach a point where even though you were friends/family/lovers before, now you find someone else's version of crazy is no longer compatible with your own version of crazy.  That's not to say that at some point your crazy couldn't eventually mingle with their crazy again...  Just not as it stands right now.

And again that's OK.

Personally I accomplished 2 things during 2020-2021:

• I spent a lot of time working on becoming a better person.
• I spent a lot of time working on becoming a bitter person.

You would think that those would be mutually exclusive, but no.

I reached out to people I thought I previously wronged in some way in my life.  I reached out to people to let them know something positive that I previously I held back at the risk of it becoming this incredibly awkward cheesy thing.  Just because I felt that everyone could use a little bit of positivity at the moment. 

It was a lot of: 

• Sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable...
• Remember that time 10-15 years ago...
• I just wanted you to know that... 

And thankfully, not one person was like: "Yeah you were a total asshole back then.  I hate you." 

On the flipside I went from someone who avoided conflict online to someone who outright sought out and antagonized it.  It was a continuous election year, during a time of previously unseen duress, I was out of work for a long time, I was frustrated, and I grew fangs.  I pushed a lot of people away.  I went to a dark place.  In many ways a part of me is still there.

In addition my struggles have been compounded by loss.  Cancer has taken far too much from me.  There's a horrible irony, to live through a time when a virus is ravaging the world only to succumb to a disease caused by your own body.  I hate it.

Fuck cancer.

In 2018 I showed up to Burning Man with 2 bags and a prayer.  No camp.  No friends.  Nothing to rely on.  Just the sweltering unfeeling desert.  Make no mistake I love the people I've met during this journey.  And I'm not going to say I won't share my time with them again, but I feel like I might need to be on my own again this time.  Keith might be able to be civil on day one.  But I don't know what Kathmandu might be capable of given the duration, or how he might react.  I'm not who I was then, and I'm not entirely convinced of who I am now.