Returning to Mt Rose
I hiked toward Mt Rose this morning for the first time in four years. I did not aspire to the pinnacle, where I've been dozens of times. I hiked to the waterfalls and back.
The gentle Sierra hike was fraught. I am not the same person I was on my previous hailstone-pinged trail run/walk. People I have met since then have already left my life. I had not met my cat Ceci then, and her life has already ended as a meal for a nasty coyote pup. I had not re-met Diana, my off and on roommate during the darkest days of my soul.
I was strongish and confident that happiness would be mine for many more years. Now I am weaker, uncertain of my place and my purpose, and often overcome by clinical depression. You could say I am a shadow of that former self, and I would not say anything in response. I would listen to you hoping to understand who I have become.
At the center of the transformation of course is the tawdry and cheap dissolution of my disabled and gaslighted marriage. The damage of learning that I was unloved in the past and certainly will be, because my ex-wife is certain I deserve it, in the future.
I lost everything. I can't read fiction, I can't watch movies. I haven't gone for a run in over three years. The equitable distribution put me personally in the red for the first time since grad school. Not because the settlement was unfair—but because my idiotic ex-life partner kept hounding my lawyers with three-digit negotiations. We had a settlement agreement in early 2023. The final divorce decree, at a lower total, arrived this month. A quarter of a million in my legal fees to counter claims that were meaningless to me and harmed my victimizer.
I have not heard the phrase "I love you" in so long I can't remember. The one being who did love me—and we both knew it—died instantly between the incisors of juvenile predators.
The gentle Sierra hike was fraught. I am not the same person I was on my previous hailstone-pinged trail run/walk. People I have met since then have already left my life. I had not met my cat Ceci then, and her life has already ended as a meal for a nasty coyote pup. I had not re-met Diana, my off and on roommate during the darkest days of my soul.
I was strongish and confident that happiness would be mine for many more years. Now I am weaker, uncertain of my place and my purpose, and often overcome by clinical depression. You could say I am a shadow of that former self, and I would not say anything in response. I would listen to you hoping to understand who I have become.
At the center of the transformation of course is the tawdry and cheap dissolution of my disabled and gaslighted marriage. The damage of learning that I was unloved in the past and certainly will be, because my ex-wife is certain I deserve it, in the future.
I lost everything. I can't read fiction, I can't watch movies. I haven't gone for a run in over three years. The equitable distribution put me personally in the red for the first time since grad school. Not because the settlement was unfair—but because my idiotic ex-life partner kept hounding my lawyers with three-digit negotiations. We had a settlement agreement in early 2023. The final divorce decree, at a lower total, arrived this month. A quarter of a million in my legal fees to counter claims that were meaningless to me and harmed my victimizer.
I have not heard the phrase "I love you" in so long I can't remember. The one being who did love me—and we both knew it—died instantly between the incisors of juvenile predators.
Hiking is healing. Hiking brings wisdom and beautify. We, here in the US, are also dying between pincers. Trumps thugs are dogs with blood on their gums. You will all get the scent soon. The stink of carnivore semen.
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