The thing is, I'm not the same person that I used to be. In some ways I'm better, but in most ways, I think, I'm worse than before.

Either way, I don't want to ever be that person again. Never ever ever again.

I once wrote that hope exists to disappoint. Well, my hope disappointed a long time ago, and so I killed it, and I'm glad that it's gone.

Wait, that's not quite true. I didn't kill it. One person clonked it over the head and held it down so another person could stomp it to death. I just watched in horror. Frozen and disbelieving.

And then they both took a shit on the corpse.

There's this noise, a roar, a piercing shriek, a riotous cacophony. It permeates everything that I am and was and will ever be. It's deafening, and my ears recoil from the force of the sound. My mind rejects it, but it's like rejecting my beating heart. And my heart is fueled by it.

Its oscillations vibrate my bones, my joints, my tendons. I feel this din as surely as I feel my own body heat. It's just there, always and forever.

Until I try, really try, to hear it.

I shut out all distractions, I isolate myself, I close my eyes, I listen.

Nothing.

Every fiber of my being suddenly craves desires yearns for that which should be there must be there could be there would be there if only...

If only...

I want to write. I really do. I want to write and much as I want to breathe. More, maybe.

Just not about this. Just not about her.

So...

Not much of an entry here, but an entry nevertheless.

I had a goal this past week. I might have failed. I certainly didn't accomplish as much as I'd wanted. I got to about 50% of my goal. That was on Friday.

Oh well.

What do you do, when it's been so long that it's nothing more than a distant memory? Not even that, really. More like a fiction.

Once upon a time, I was a writer of sorts.

Now it's been months. So much has happened. Even more has not happened. And here I sit, in this chair. And here my words sit, inside my head. Struggling to make their way down my arms and out my fingers.

A recap of the last several months? I don't think so. Not yet, not all at once. Maybe tidbits every now and then. Maybe never.

I got my last check from the publisher today. That's twelve stories I've written but never read. A paltry sum I've received, but still more than a lot of writers of sorts manage. I think I was just in the right place, and the right frame of mind, at the right time.

My goal now, were I to be so bold as to state a goal, would be to write in this journal more often. Once per day should be doable, but once per week is probably more likely for now. I'm starting over, you see. Or trying to start over.

This was my outlet for a long time. Then, for even longer, it was my voice, as I screamed of my pain. Now, now I'm not sure what it's supposed to be. I just know that I miss it. I miss this, this sound of fingers tap-tap-tapping on my keyboard as my mind empties onto my screen.

Maybe that's all this will be now. A sedative for my mind and my heart. A calming for my soul.

It's impossible not to wonder, at this late hour on this late date, though wondering is bad stupid pointless.

What will happen to me in the next few days? What will happen to me in the next few hours? What what what what?

Context changes once again.

Will the passion that's been sucked from me for so long be suddenly free to linger, to motivate, to perhaps even inspire? Might I write again of the thoughts feelings impulses obsessions compulsions that continue to consume me?

Everyone on Earth, were you to poll them, would say that this is a good thing, this change. Everyone on Earth would be wrong, though. This is the worst thing.

It's empty now. None of my stuff remains, or hers, or ours. There's just a bed, more like a little cot, out in the middle of the living room. Something for the tenants after me or maybe even for the tenants yet to come. Furnished apartment, the ad could say, and it wouldn't be completely lying.

I hate liars, so I approve, I suppose.

I'd just been bored at home. Too bored all the time, so I came here to, I dunno, see smell feel the place. To see what it's like, to try to belong, or at least remember belonging.

My plan fails, though. My mind has failed. I only remember the emptiness that I see around me.

Places often seem so small when you return after a long absence, but this place echoes too much with its bare walls and its empty rooms. It seems huge.

What I want to write is that I did everything and said everything and showed everything I could, to show both how I felt and what kind of person I was.

I tried my absolute best, but I failed.

I would like it if this was the last time I wrote about this.

I just got back from another routine checkup at the lasik place.

My vision tested at 20/15 in my right (treated) eye.

Yay!

They're also seeing no signs of any epitheliol in-growth. I've been put on an as-needed basis for any future visits. I'm not expecting any reason to go back, except maybe in a year or two, to have them correct my left eye for seeing up close.

Man, I really suck at this blogging thing now. Or maybe I don't even suck. You have to do something to suck at it.

Anyway.

March 2nd was my one-year anniversary of getting lasik in my right eye. Then, of course, I had an "enhancement" in early November. That's what they call it when the first round doesn't work so they try again. An "enhancement."

Whatever.

One other fun thing that I totally didn't even write about was the epithelial in-growth I had. That was when a bunch of cells that were supposed to be on the outside of my eye decided to spread to underneath my flap. This was made possible because the doctor had accidentally scratched my flap when he pried it up to do the "enhancement."

The main symptom from this was a fairly severe halo effect in the upper-left part of my right eye's vision. It made Christmas trees look really pretty.

I had the in-growth taken care of in early January. That procedure was much like the last one, except that (a) there was no laser, and (b) the doctor scraped my eyeball and the inside of my flap for a long time, to clear out all the renegade cells, then I had to wear a bandage lens for a week.

Since then, my vision has been fantastic. Just a smidgen worse than I'd been able to see with my glasses before all this lasik stuff started. I'm completely happy and satisfied with the outcome and, despite the complications that I had, I'd still recommend it to anyone wanting to rid themselves of glasses.