Nearly 1 year...

 And I'm not sure how much better I am. I may be in some ways, a lot worse.

Sometimes I think the universe either is out to get me, or how everything that may make my life a little easier, turns out too good to be true.

Rebecca: "Sam, I was wrong about men. I was wrong about my career. And I’ve been wrong about every single thing I’ve ever thought, felt, or believed in my entire life!"

Sam: "Well... I wouldn't go that far. You still look great."

It's like you'd think just losing Joyce is hard enough, but all that has followed and it keeps piling up on me. I just wonder why am i still here? Does the universe and my existence just want to keep beating me up?..at some point I will be gone and it won't be able to.

-Joyce's funeral 

-Mocha

-misunderstandings

-Jury Duty

-Grandma/Saundra

-Saundra

-All of the "Year of 1sts"

-My company/job

-Diana Green

-Rosie

-romantic lesson

-Tim

-Grandma and family related concerns

-Anthony

-romantic kerfuffle

-Kaja gets sick and is still not out of the woods

-ER visit for a pinched nerve and heart issue/blood pressure

-The different groups I join and then they go sour (I'm not going to name specifics, but let's just say more than 1 I have felt isolated by some individuals)

and it'll be 1 year in a few weeks. Then as I understand to many, the 2nd year can get worse emotionally. I just..I'm not cut out of for this. i don't think I was ever cut out for marriage or even a relationship now thinking about it anyway. But I fell into the trap. I loved Joyce, and did my best. And now I am doing my best to figure this shit out. But it's taxing as fuck. Someone else would have been able to handle this better.

Spending 99% of my time the last 14 years with a woman and then almost in an instant she is gone, unforeseen. And my brain and whole body became so accustomed to her, that existing without her seems not real. Not something my body can survive even.

And now I may face a major health issue, all alone. Sure I have family and friends, but it's not the same. To face a major health issue, now at 50 years old, all alone day-2-day. Some do it. But like had I been alone when I got diabetes or the blood clot?..I would have gone to my parents. But Joyce and Saundra..and my primary doctor of course did help me a lot. But initially it was Joyce and Saundra. I had no idea wtf I was dealing with.

But, yeah I still have my primary doctor, but I see her maybe a few times a year. Sure, in emergencies.

I've become codependent and super sadly reliant on having someone here to help me with this. And between Joyce and I, I am the one who previously lived alone.

So..you know, either my luck needs to turn around soon, or idk..more mental health? not like I haven't had much of it already. yeah..the fucking service I thought would help me..like in a dark deep despair time, I have had some less than ideal experiences with...

maybe getting through this month..and August and September?..yeah but then all the fucking holidays and things about Joyce come up again. Maybe January?..maybe. 

You know I need to spill some guts about dating again here.

Why do I feel, like back in the Okstupid days, I bend over backwards for these attractive women? And why can't I feel or for that matter why must I censor myself? both with potential women to date and talking to others including widows, to not talk about Joyce.

So I mean here I go again..I just "YOU'RE NOT READY" and "you'll know when you're ready" + "you're still grieving"

You know what? who is ANYONE out there to tell me WHEN I'M READY or if I can or cannot date if I am "still grieving."????

How about this? I HAVE A MENTAL HEALTH CONDITION THAT GIVES ME NO CHOICE TO NEVER FILTER MY TALKING ABOUT JOYCE. NEVER. NADDA. ZERO. ZIP. ZILCH. AND IT'S NOT TEMPORARY. IT'S A PERMANENT CONDITION. NEVER GOING AWAY. 

I'D HAVE TO GET A FUCKING LOBOTOMY TO GET RID OF IT.

IT'S LIKE TRYING TO CONVINCE JOYCE TO LIKE THE BEATLES. IT NEVER COULD AND NEVER DID HAPPEN...........NEVER!..AND SHE WOULD GIVE 78 ARGUMENTS WHY THAT YOU WOULD HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO ARGUMENT WITH.

So..that's it. I'm done right? I'll never have a girlfriend again. maybe not even be intimate with a woman again. Sure as all fuck won't find a woman whose into prog or collects vinyl obsessively.

Nope..all because I not only love Joyce, but her imprint on my brain and rituals and personality and memories and foods and friends and family and pop culture and pets and opinions about demographics and her work/career and trips and shopping and collecting and stores and yearly traditions and competitiveness and shopping habits and stories and social approaches and anecdotes and watching lists and youtube and anything that's cute and fighting for marginalized groups and minorities and under-represented and being a genuis and doing research and speaking out for what should fair and complaining about foods and other items going away and being sad about businessess closing and marching to the beat of her own drum and feeling like you are shouting and no one seems to hear and having deep superior knowledge of 80's and 80's nostalgia and getting ice cream and getting mcdonalds brekky fast sandwich and her french toast recipe and her zuchinni recipe with tomato soup and garlic and her Coco nursery rhymes and using Latte with the loving you lots and lots song and epic phone calls with Saundra and when i chimed in "do you want to talk to her?"..and A&W and Rudy Rootbeer and donuts and mama's favorite restaurants and Joyce's top 5 salads and Tres Leche with Latte and getting pissed when T found stuff at DT and seeing the stuff at DT in White Bear Lake and mama's calling and calling and calling and getting pissed and when celebrity deaths happened like George Michael Whitney and Nez, Peter and Davy and ..and being annoyed by Awards shows and Beat Shazam..and being late and blaming Papa and hating shopping for gifts or even the other holiday things for family and Mama's cookies with the kids and being late for a movie and getting pissed and then later when she's wrong saying "shutup" to Papa.

there's a lot more of course..

so..yeah how? how exactly aren't countless of these things to be mentioned by me?..how..like Rebecca Howe Rebecca Who Rebecca Where...how?..I'd LOVE to know because I've thought about this for darn near a year and I still have no clue HOWWWWWWWWWWW

So..so that's just it. These people..these women who can't be with someone who has absolutely NO ABILITY to stop talking about his late wife, well that's it. I am doomed to be alone because I am confined to be in love with Joyce, my memories with Joyce, and all that Joyce PUT INTO ME..even though she's gone for the rest of my life.

Or..perhaps a woman is out there who has absolutely no issue about hearing about Joyce regularly. Now..there's a thought?..

Hello Kitty...Companionship vs Loneliness

 So 

So these were announced about a month ago to be special Hello Kitty Starbucks items for sale November 6th at Starbucks locations.

Joyce loved Hello Kitty. She got sucked-in, or was way in before the masses got totally sucked-in to Hello-Kitty per her endless collection of items. And I'm 99.99% certain she would have wanted the Plushie and maybe the Mug. Probably the mug.

Joyce's cousin notified me about this about a month ago, and she is into Hello Kitty very much like Joyce. Although Joyce being the competitive collector she was, would always claim to be more into HK than her cousin. But her cousin probably got into it largely per Joyce anyway.

Well Victoria got up this morning and after over an hour of waiting, managed to get a Plushie at a Starbucks, at like 6:30AM. The only 1 the Starbucks got, lol. After waiting an hour.

I did not get up in time. Didn't fully realize how mobbed they would be I guess. And a lot of it was likely people buying them and then flipping them on ebay pathetically, and yet quite predictable.

Joyce would get sucked into the hype, and I suppose in a way, I have been too.

I wanted to get 1 of those plushies for her. Even though she's gone. For her memory. But I didn't. I did go to my local Target and found 1 of the plastic glasses at least this evening. But I guess people lined up at 5AM.

I guess I don't feel so bad as getting up so early, going out in the dark, and no guarantee I even get 1, and for her, not myself, I guess it's not going to traumatize me so much. But I can't deny, I am apologizing and feeling guilty.

It goes back in some ways in her missing out on k.d. lang's complete Ingenue concert she missed, or a few years back these Plushies they had at the Cat Cafe Cafe Meow I recall in Minneapolis and New Hope having special movie Plushies for the new Puss N Boots movie. Joyce found out about them the day after the premiere, but I called the Cafe asking if they still had them on Saturday and they were all gone.

She dwelled on that for a few days, and later would bring it up. 

All Papa's fault. I apologized to her even though I didn't know about them. Although I kind of remember telling her we or I could try going over the weekend instead of on the Friday. 

--------------------------------

So transitioning to the topic I have been seeing in many of the Widow/Widower communities (Facebook and Reddit mostly at this point). Being in widowhood, you go from having a companion for so long. In my case, the better part of over 14 years. To back to nobody. Loneliness.

I didn't love being alone before I met Joyce, but I guess I dealt with it, even though I do believe I experienced levels of depression. And I'll admit, even when I was with Joyce, I experienced being lonely in public at times. I think it is my perception of feeling invisible to women. Or to a lot of women.

I guess it could be just random chance on the women I would encounter, and why I never noticed them noticing me. It's like their approach and being conditioned to do their thing in public places, and they are not looking to be approached by men in many environments. The creepy factor. And I don't blame them for that, but it kind of can drive men like myself too far the other way.

It may come down to the place and situation. For example, I was at a movie last night Bugonia (which I filmed a video review for YouTube actually, which I will hopefully put up on my channel soon), and there were maybe 10 people in the theater. One of them, was a woman sitting alone, eating her popcorn. 

After the movie was over, I ended up leaving right in front of her. I could have, but didn't say anything to her. I didn't even look at her after leaving the theater. I do think she went to use the restroom right afterwards. But the point I am making, that's not a situation to approach a woman really. I mean I guess I could have said something to her, or any of the other people leaving the theater. But I was just minding my own business.

And maybe had I, she might have engaged in a short chat with me. But even if that had happened, chances are, I never would see her again. I guess it may depend. The movie was kind of niche. A darker, Scifi Black Comedy of sorts. And it has provoked a lot of chatter I guess afterwards from accounts I've read online.

But the point being, it's so many of these situations that make meeting women at times so challenging. I mean places like book stores, coffee shops, libraries, grocery stores, gyms, walks,, etc are not places most women go to meet men. They go there to do what they want, and then go home. Even record stores or record shows, while obviously they are there per they have an interest in music, like myself. They are not really there to get hit on by men. I mean I suppose it might be a little more likely, but then again, most of the women I ever see at Record Stores and concerts, are not single anyway. I'd estimate 90% or more. And more often than not, they are there with their boyfriend/husband anyway.

Which kind of goes back to my decades old dilemma in that Women into music, collecting music, being super passionate about music, especially the kinds of music I love, are super rare. I'm not saying they don't exist, nor are there none who are single (or even Single maybe looking, per there are many women who are single, and not interested in looking).

But part of the issue comes down to love of music, and not just someone who listens to whatever their friends like or the radio/tiktok trends. Or Country or even say Rap or something. Or "soundtracks."

Because there are plenty of women who enjoy "music" but not really are "musos" or whatever. And I know, Joyce being one, although still a bit of an exception in that her taste in music was not really a "muso" but she was very consumed by the music she loved. It just wasn't about *listening to music*, so much as being able to dance to it or it having a hook. "Pop Music" per say. 

But Prog and Metal? she loathed. But her passion for her music, and it being at least somewhat still within my tastes (80's and 90's Pop among some others), I could connect with her.

But women who even have a Spotify account that show listening to a lot of Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Olivia Rodrigo, Bad Bunny, and the like. Yeah, I would struggle to connect with their music listening tastes.

And even say if they were record collectors. They participate on Record Store Day, or even do YouTube or possibly podcasting about music, at least I might be able to connect to, regardless to much of their taste. But the amount of women I see doing that stuff is sadly still limited. There are some. More than probably their used to be. But it's still largely sausage fests, or even the women that do? yeah they are somewhere else on the planet and likely not single anyway.

I mean I concluded years back, the idea of meeting a woman who I would share the same music taste is not too likely, and even if so, that can't be the basis of a relationship. I suppose there are some couples that do, and it can be a big thing. But things like values, family, and other life interests and priorities can be more important. 

They were with Joyce. And I imagine they could be with someone else. I just find some of it is a culture thing. Joyce connected with me in being so passionate about music. She "got me" in that sense, and I "got her."

I would love to find a companion who "gets me" even if they don't share the same taste or limited taste in music. Or the old adage, maybe she may acquire a taste for some of my taste in music. Although that's often got to be a give-and-take thing. And I did that with Joyce. I got into some of her music, The Monkees, Michael Nesmith, Josh Rouse, Mayer Hawthorne, George Michael even. And she did a bit witht mine like Bend Sinister, sElf and a few other examples.

I dunno, the more I continue to think about this, the more frustrating it gets. And it does come back to the conclusion I made right when I met Joyce. Fuck it, I want to love my stuff. If I meet someone who does or not. 

But the loneliness still may exist, even if I used to call my music "my companion/relationship/girlfriend" lol.