Feb. 4 - Quatervois in Posso's Prompts

Quatervois (n:) A crossroad; a critical turning point in one’s life

2018 felt like an endless loop of turning points and critical decisions that occurred in my life.

My girlfriend left me because of my brazen drinking habits.
I found a job in Utah that rekindled my passion for writing for my own enjoyment again.
I had a mass removed from my prostate and underwent several grueling months of radiation and brachytherapy among other treatments.
I had an ex girlfriend take her own life and write a full notebook’s worth of explanation as to how she could blame me for her actions.
My girlfriend left me a second time, after I was done with treatment, thinking that I was pushing her away and that I only needed her to take care of me until I was better.
Not one, but two OWI’s in a three month span; one after my breakup as I was drinking the depression away and the second as I was trying to drink the depression out enough so I could drive my car into anything solid going as fast as I could.

1. That’s just the ones that I could think of in a span of one song I was listening to.

It’s definitely said in a cliche-like context often but, how does one not ask “If this didn’t happen, how would my life be different?” If I hadn’t have waited around and fell back in love with Kylie, which was what I wanted, what would have come of me taking the full time job presented to me in Utah? Clearly, I wouldn’t be battling with the law about how irresponsible I am as a drunk and a driver. What happens if I don’t have a second round of treatment in the same year? Do I decide that my life is truly meaningless and I’m just spinning my perpetual life wheels in the mud until I can’t get out of the hole that is doing something meaningful to me? Would I have gotten cancer again if I would have changed my lifestyle habits after fighting black out drunk with someone I loved in the first place? Those are also all questions I could ask myself in the time it takes to hear the chorus of one song.

No one ever has the answer to life. No one ever can clearly predict their future. The hardest part of getting older, at least for me, is the fact that I have been presented so many issues, choices, paths that lead to a crossroad that sometimes you wonder if it’s safe to put pants on and walk out your fucking front door. I picture my life as an intricately woven spiderweb. Of course, there are things you do that bring you closer to the center where you wait comfortably and there are things that get caught up and captured in your path that you just have to dispose of by any means. There’s also the chance that the storm of the year rears up and washes away your web in the blink of an eye. Every single day you’re presented with the easiest choice of all: Do you want to live another day or do you want to give up? If you keep deciding to live another day, you’re given the opportunity to learn from each day and take that experience and keep building, improving on the path you are taking.

As just the quick sum of events of one year can show, addition blows as a fucking function of math and no one is ever perfect. At the end of the day, I’m glad that I was presented with confronting how miserably depressed and alone I felt and every night this year, just as I’m doing right now, I take a part of my day (or night usually) and just think about how I want to make a different choice tomorrow and see how that benefits or negates my day. There’s one thing I definitely have taken from 2018: nothings worth making your own life more miserable than it has to be. Handling depression is easier said than done for almost anyone and it’s not easy to explain to some people that it will get better; you can make it better for yourself and that friends and family are there to reach out to help pull you out of the hole you fell in. As an avid fan of reliving the past, you need to know where to draw that invisible line where the past isn’t going to change what happens to your future. Living a life full of regrets and ‘what ifs’ is just wasting time you could spend making your web stronger. I can honestly say 34 days into this month, that I wholeheartedly regret any decision I’ve made this year so far. I may have my sad days, bad times, but I’ve been able to learn to deal with them without drinking my feelings under the table or running away and I think that has been the healthiest start to a year I’ve had in my adult life.