Worst year. EVER!

A lot of folks are complaining about this past year--lost love, lost family, lost celebs...yes, 2016 sucked as a whole for all those reasons and more. My year took a turn in the last quarter of 2015 when I lost my mom at Thanksgiving, November 29th to be exact. Just two days before Christmas '15, I lost a secondary job that was going to help me get back on my feet and into an apartment of my own. Two days before Christmas, and just two weeks after memorializing my mom in Indiana, I get the carpet yanked from under my feet.

Fast forward two months, and the wheels really came off in early February. Through no fault of my own, I lost the house where I rented a very nice room and nearly my primary job. I was no longer playing drums and hadn't for a few months by then. At the same time I was facing a personal crisis, my ex-wife was facing a very real, life-and-death crisis. When her friend died, it affected many of our mutual friends AND, most importantly, my two daughters. I was there for them, putting my own issues aside for a few days.

I have to take a minute to thank my dearest friend, Paula Boyette, without whom that month would have been SO much worse. Not only was she a great friend and a personal aid to me, but she came over the morning after the tragic loss and cleaned my ex-wife's house. That's a true friend. Thank you, Paula!

So February sucked and seemed like a continuation of the end of 2015...then April happened. Just a week before I was planning to leave and spend my summer in Indiana with my widowed father, I totalled my Black Beauty--the 2014 Ford Focus sportwagon I'd only had for 10 months. To make matters worse, my insurance had just lapsed (yes, that was $200 mistake that I'm STILL paying for dearly) and I was "at fault" in the accident. Plans put on hold yet again.

Now, I DID get to have two great months with my dad mid-June through mid-August, but not without help. And I was unable to find employment while I was up there, but it didn't matter to me. I was right where I needed to be. That put me in a financial hole and when I returned, there was much uncertainty. I can't say that I was loving life back in Tallahassee. I seemed to be pulling knives out of my back every time I turned around. That's why when I heard this song by Saint Asonia this morning, it rang true:

Let me live my life 

I can go get my knife 

Or I can pull out the one that you stuck in my back 

For my suffering, you've got nothing to gain 

My pain is your entertainment

(Saint Asonia, 2015)

I offer up those lyrics to 2016. It's been a fuck-my-life kind of year from Nov 2015 - Oct 2016.

I am thankful that things began to change in November of this year, but that first anniversary, first Thanksgiving and all without mom were very difficult and painful. Yes, things have turned around in this last quarter of 2016, but I'm not sad to see this year fade into the blackness. That's what this last year has been shrouded in...total blackness...the only bright spot being my precious time spent with dad in Indiana.

Goodbye to 2016...and fuck you very much!