52

 Going on 52 years...
Just a few weeks away...
Just a month away from a one year anniversary...
A separation...
An ending...
I'm making progress,
But it still feels like...
Well, I can still feel it...
I haven't quite made it to indifference...
It still affects me...
I still catch myself ruminating on done deeds...
Picking at scabs...
Healing is happening...
I'm working hard,
Putting my back into it,
And still taking the time to do things that I enjoy...
Taking care of business,
After a fashion...
Bills are paid...
Roof over my head...
Two crazy cute ferrets sharing my room...
Yeah, modern world, one job can't rent a house or an apartment...
So roommates it is (Human ones...)
Too wrapped up in time management to socialize much
(At all...)
Still socially shell-shocked from 2020's Covid World 
And other more personally relevant disasters...
Quarantine plus trust issues was a great way to ring in 2021...
As always,
I deal with it,
Soldier on...
The Dude abides...
 I'm neither a good person,
Nor a bad person...
Like most everyone else, I'm a bit of both...
Just another human being born into this world
With little direction given on how to navigate our inner worlds...
We just wake up one day,
Suddenly a human,
Confused and naked,
With no understanding of the local language and customs...
It's hard enough learning how to navigate the physical world in that condition...
But navigating our own consciousness? 
Our emotions versus our intellect?
What's inside is more daunting than what's outside,
For some of us...
So,
The past year...
Back to that...
Longest period in thirty years that I have not been with a woman...
Longest amount of time that I haven't wound up in a relationship...
This is a conscious choice...
I've never really allowed myself to get to know me...
I've studied me, and analyzed me,
Applied cold scientific logic to every single one of my emotions...
Scrutiny under the microscope...
My intellect striving for supremacy over emotions for decades...
Messy things, emotions...
Often painful, and illogical...
And so, I never took the time to appreciate my own company...
There was always a significant other
Since I guess I felt like I didn't exist
If I weren't validated by belonging to someone else,
Or some bull shit like that...
I never really took ownership of myself...
I'm doing that now...
I'm taking advantage of the opportunity...
Taking time...
Exploring what I feel...
Getting out of the house for more than just work...
Exploring...
Just driving...
And chilling with ferrets...