So I posted here a few days ago talking about how my life is basically falling apart, I’m completely broke, I can hardly afford to get to my job, and I feel like I’m doomed to be an NPC shopkeeper repeating “hi, how can I help you?” with a vacant stare, shutting my brain off, and going into customer service mode where I can effectively function on autopilot and not feel the crushing weight of knowing I’ll never find a job that pays well and/or makes me happy.

Monday afternoon, I got the news that my grandfather had passed away. He’d been fighting cancer for the better part of 20 years, but this turned out to be the last round. His health had declined pretty quickly over the past few weeks and he went onto life support Sunday night. My dad and his family made the decision to turn off the machines Monday morning. The doctors said it would probably be maybe minutes before he’d be gone, and true to the super-soldier he’d always been, he hung on for another few hours. I’d like to think he heard the doctors say that and went “oh yeah? Watch me.” He went peacefully and hopefully without too much pain.

Why does it always keep getting worse? When will it finally be okay? When can I finally stop feeling like I have a hole inside me that just keeps growing and growing and taking more and more of my soul and myself away from me? I remember hope exists, but it’s really hard to keep that in mind when everything in my life is so broken, empty, meaningless, joyless, and takes more from me than it gives back.

I feel so goddamn empty right now. I almost got off the bus at the wrong stop because I had genuinely forgotten if we’d already passed my stop on the way to work today. I’d forgotten that I was even on the bus. My mind is so cloudy and vacant, and yet all I can think about is how terrible everything is. My coworkers even agree that I’m not really in the right state to even be here, but I literally can’t afford to not be here.

I feel like giving up. I know that I can’t. I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. But god fucking dammit, it’s getting harder and harder every fucking day. I woke up this morning and all I wanted to do was go right back to sleep and keep sleeping until I don’t wake up the next time.