“It is only in our darkest hours that we may discover the true strength of the brilliant light within ourselves that can never, ever, be dimmed.” — Doe Zantamata

"Could you please leave the lights off?" — David Simmer II

It's amazing how once things start to go wrong, they often continue to go wrong until some cataclysmic event occurs where things can't get any worse, and you end up on the upswing again. The last time this happened was the four year period from my mother's diagnosis in 2014 up until her death in 2018 (though it wasn't until half-way through 2019 that I started to feel like I was slowly moving into better days).

And here we are again.

Right now I have movied past "Acceptance" and entered the "Embrace the Horror" stage. Things will continue to get worse, there's nothing I can do about it, so I might as well try not to stress about things as I ride that train off the cliff. The crash will come soon enough.

Which brings us to the novel Dune, as most everything eventually does.

Early in the story, young Paul Atreides is upset about leaving his cushy life on the planet Caladan to relocate to the planet Arrakis. It's a dangerous move to an inhospitable world which will likely result in death and ruin. Pauls father, Duke Leto, knows this, and tells Paul that "Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken."

That the Duke ends up getting slaughtered shortly after stepping foot on Arrakis came as no surprise. Especially to the Duke. It's what had to happen in order for Paul to become the cosmic messiah he was destined to be all along, shit happens, and so... yeah... Embrace the Horror.

Last night, in hopes of getting my sleeper to awaken, I started taking stock of the things in my life that will have to change... as well as the things I'll have to leave behind. It was sobering to realize just how much crap I simply do not give a shit about. The only thing I have that matters? My cats. So long as I can take care of Jake and Jenny, does anything else really matter? Apparently not. Not for me anyway. That's a monumentally huge shift from where my head was at five years ago.

So things are not quite as dire as they first appeared. And that's nice, I guess.

Though I've probably got a ways to go before hitting bottom, so there's that.

Life. Amiright?