A note to my younger self.

Zach,

You know how when you want to travel the world and become something great? You will experience this, but not un the way that you think you will. Try not to be disappointed when your true dreams aren’t achieved, because you will gain so much more knowledge and experience from other wonderful and sometimes terrible things. You will learn to be somewhat happy in your skin, it won’t be easy and you’ll doubt yourself for a long time, but in your 30s you’ll discover that what others think of you just doesn’t remotely matter. What really matters is the love and heartbreak that you will have in your life.

In your early 20s, you’ll discover that you are a hard worker and will gain a new perspective on life and people in general. People will show you daily that they aren’t as terrible or horrible as a lot of the world would have you believe. You’ll also discover that what really matters more than trying to find the “right” guy is finding the right friends who will become a new type of family for you. Those friends aren’t, unfortunately, going to be really close to you for a long time, so please enjoy your time with them as often as you can. You’re also going to fall head over heals for a man that you think is the one. I promise you, he’s not and not only that, he won’t feel the same about you. Your heart will be broken, this isn’t the last time sadly.

Your late 20s are going to turbulent to say the least. You’ll dramatically change careers, it will be a rough transition, but you will eventually find success, though it may not feel like it at first. You will also meet someone that you think you could spend the rest of your life with. I wish I could tell you to run away from him and never go back, but you won’t listen, you wouldn’t listen to momma or dad, something you will come to regret. He will break you in ways you never thought you’d have to endure, but never fear, you will eventually find closure and recover from it. Sadly, you will be with him when one of the worst things in your life happens, dad will pass away, and you will little to no support from him. This is also what will set in-motion a dramatic life change that you will forever be grateful for. As for dad, it will be sudden, unexpected and extremely hard on your family. Momma’s health will decline in a way that doesn’t ever really improve. You will become even closer with momma, and some of your family, but unfortunately you’ll notice a divide start to happen within the family that becomes more and more noticeable over the next few years.

Oh the early 30s… This is a time of so much happiness that you almost think you can go off your antidepressants, please don’t. Going off them is a very rough time and brings all the happiness to a crash. Going back to the happiness; you will move back to Arkansas to be with momma and help take care of her and you will go back to one of your first work loves, Coffee! Don’t worry you aren’t taking a step back, you are going to work in one of the most beautiful locations you’ve ever seen. You will create some absolutely wonderful memories with your momma, treasure those, they are more important to you than you could ever know. You will also, during all this change and wonderfulness, meet the man that you will marry. He is more wonderful than I can even begin to describe and he will accept you with all your flaws, all your oddness and all your family’s quirks. He will show you love like you never knew you could experience and there will be times that you get some pretty bad imposter-syndrome because you won’t think you deserve that kind of love. Just work through those periods and tell yourself you deserve the love, it’ll be hard but it is true. With your husband, you will get your first kitty, his name is Burt and he’s the cutest orange cat that has the craziest and sweetest personality. He will become your best friend. Speaking of best-friends, your human best-friend and you will sadly grow apart, it will break your heart and you will always have a little hole in your heart for her and you will continue to hold out hope that perhaps one day you will be friends again.

I’m currently in our late 30s, its been rough, good but rough. You’ll get closer with your husbands family and with your sisters, which is sadly going to be very much needed as we experience a lot of loss of life. First it starts with momma. The loss of momma will break you; there’s no other way to say it. Your very soul will feel shattered and won’t know how to go on, that feeling has yet to dissipate. Then, one month later, your Gran in Scotland is going to pass away, this is fortunately a peaceful thing as Gran has been ill for a long time and she will finally no longer have to fight for life everyday. Two weeks later, your Uncle Paul will pass away. The two of you have not been that close for a long time, but his passing compounds the loss of momma and gran and you will have more dark days than good days. You will think of ways to just end it all, it just all seems like too much and you can’t figure out why this is happening. Try to remember you have so many people who love you and need you around still. It’s hard and you will struggle with it constantly, you will mask your true feelings to literally everyone because you’re afraid to show them how you really feel because you don’t want them to be concerned or to have them think you’re looking for attention. Imposter-syndrome and survivors guilt are going to plague you a lot, its okay to not be okay. Remember to talk to your husband and your friends, they will help you.

Life is interesting and worth the journey, even if it takes a great toll on you physically and emotionally. You need to take sometime to reflect on all that you have accomplished and all that is still yet to happen. Love yourself, give yourself grace and don’t take anyone or anything for granted.

Stones

You know the saying “Leave no stone unturned”? I believe that is my dogs life motto; she is always “collecting” rocks and stones in the backyard and my husband and I are always taking them from her and putting them in the former candle holding metal pail turned rock bucket.

As I was having my morning coffee today on the back porch watching my dog, Lady, have her morning trot around the backyard, I looked at the bucket and noticed how full it is getting. It got me thinking about how such a small silly thing like rocks makes my dog so happy and proud of herself. She is a naturally happy and energetic dog and her zeal has definitely rubbed off on me a few times, but I wish I could find my own thing that makes me as happy as those rocks make her. Having severe clinical depression and anxiety has made it so that I have a very hard time finding the happy in most things. On average, I’d say I’m more numb to everything than any other feeling. It’s only gotten worse over the last five months since my mother passed away and I can genuinely say that I miss feeling most my emotions. It feels like my body is on autopilot and I get things done and go where I need to go, but many times, I have no clue when or how I did that.

I know depression is a liar, I remind myself as often as I can, and my husband likes to remind me that my brain is just a bully sometimes, but to even feel down and sad would be a better feeling than this numbness. It makes you feel artificial and like you’re being cheated at a life because you aren’t having to experience it all. I’m sure it sounds like a dream to some to not have to experience it all, but let me tell you, when you have your husband do something really sweet and romantic and all you feel is emptiness, it is just wrong. What really sucks is also trying to get people that don’t know you to understand that you aren’t purposely being apathetic, but rather you’re being forced into it. It’s like an abusive relationship but with your own brain.

I work at a beautiful museum in the coffee shop/restaurant and my job does bring me quite a bit of joy, but when I am having one of the “numb” moments, which can last hours to weeks, even work doesn’t help. I’ve worked in the coffee industry for close to 20yrs now and you’d think that being in my favorite type of space, outside of my home, that I’d be able to kick the feeling but I can’t. Lately, creating new and yummy drinks has been my go-to for trying to get out of the numbness, but even that isn’t working.

Beyond my work, I don’t really have any hobbies, though I do play the occasionally video game. I know that sounds rather sad that I don’t have any hobbies, but for the last 15yrs or so, I was my mother’s caretaker. She had secondary progressive multiple sclerosis as well as many many other chronic medical conditions. My dad, up until he passed away 9yrs ago helped of course, but after he passed away it was mostly just me. My sisters helped when they could and my husband did what he could, but that was it. I knew her medical history and issues better than anyone, even her. Being that I was her caretaker I, without issue or hesitation, put my life on the back burner. I wanted to make sure she was as comfortable, happy and healthy as possible. Sadly, in September of 2022 my mom passed away from a heart attack. Since then, I’ve been recovering from the shock of her loss and more recently I’ve been recovering from the loss of a fundamental purpose in life. I imagine its similar to how a parent does everything they can to take care of their child, it never felt like it was forced on me, I took care of her because I wanted to. However, not having her to take care of is something that is very strange for me. I guess I’m meant to be a caregiver, but maybe it’s time I became a caregiver to myself. It’s time I find my bucket to fill with new stones.

On being me.

I should start with an introduction I suppose. My name is Zach, I’m married to my wonderfully patient husband Chris and we have two cats and a crazy dog. We live in the Northwest Arkansas area and are just trying to make it by, one day at a time.

Neither of us is from this area, I’m originally from Houston, TX and he’s originally from Chicago, IL. We both somehow managed to end up in Arkansas and when we met it was love at first sight…sort of, more on that later. I’m an introvert that somehow ended up always working with the public and being a “people person”. I’ve become accustom to it now, but I still have my moments when I just want to crawl into my shell and hide from the world. I’ve got a series of maladies, though most notably I do suffer from clinical depression, ptsd and generalized anxiety. All that combined with a rather turbulent last 10yrs has made me a different person than I know I used to be, but I’m not totally against who I am today. It’s a daily discovery who I’m becoming and I wanted to bring others along my journey.

I plan on having a schedule of posting on either Tuesdays and/or Fridays with hopefully more to come as I grow and become used to writing again. Some of you may know me from my previous blogs or from my other social media sites, if so, hi there and welcome.

For now, this is where I’m ending and beginning. I’ll speak to you soon.