I just got home. I'm feeling ... threadbare. There's no other word to describe it. The house is quiet. Too quiet. If not for needing to cut the grass tomorrow, I might have just stayed on the road. Sometimes I feel like that's about all there is left for me. Make the truck go, make money, fend off the sharks, come home and catch my breath, then start it all over again. That's my lot. But everyone says “Oh, he'll be fine.” I guess I will be, really. I don't see an alternative.

I ordered a pizza tonight. I sat in the parking lot at the grocery store when I dropped my trailer, thinking that I needed to go in and buy some food. I knew there was nothing at the house. But I couldn't bear the thought of going in there and dealing with anybody. Fuck the diet. I'm crawling into my cave and licking my wounds. Pizza is the universal salve for all that ails you.

Last weekend I sat around with my cousin, Doug, and his wife, Margaret, and we “cut up” and had a good time. Doug remarked that I seemed like my old self again. Margaret said that the whole house seemed like a gloom had lifted off of it.

As angry as I get at the actions and reactions of friends who don't seem to know what to think, that all made it really clear to me. I can see the sun now. I can feel the wind on my skin as it blows through the trees. I can marvel at the shimmering moonlight on the surface of a lake. I had stopped noticing any of that. And while I may feel like I am 50 miles behind enemy lines and taking fire, I am alive. A live Wic is just about as dangerous as a dead Wic.

:: insert “brains!” joke here ::

I'm tired. I'm weary. I'm threadbare. The much ballyhooed comfort of friends has been sparse, to say the least. Now, more than ever, I feel like that old soldier.

You're forever returning and learning to fight
And you feel just like an old soldier tonight

You're forever beginning, barely winning the fight
And you feel just like an old soldier tonight

Listen old soldier
To the sound in your ears
Of too many battles
For too many years
There's only one thing
You've learned in defeat
Losing is bitter
And victory is sweet

You're always unravelling, traveling light
And you feel just like an old soldier tonight

This is pointless. I'm sure I'll be called to the carpet for my slip, my moment of being human. Of feeling. I guess that's what eats away at me so now. All I want to do is leave the battlefield, cross the river and rest in the shade of the trees. But I'll be damned if I know how to just walk away.