Keeping it Together

Hello friends. Welcome back.

Well I made it a week. Stayed strong at work and tried to find a new "normal." I wasnt too successful.  I'd walk by Caleb's desk and be reminded of something funny he did and I'd feel that sting in my eyes. At least five times a day. But I kept my head down and tried to toss jokes around, biting my lip when I let my mind drift. Its gonna be that way for a long time. You can feel how things have changed there. He won't be forgotten, ever.

The great thing is that everyone is being graciously cool about it. Thier GOFUNDME is now over $11,000. There are other collections going. Joe is organizing a silent auction at Indianapolis Horrorhound convention the weekend of the 9-11th of August. The plan right now is for me to be at the table on Saturday doing sketches for donations to the fund. Ive already had one taker on the commission to directly fund the GOFUNDME. I wish it were more, but maybe we're all strapped. Understandable. My dayjob is planting a tree and a plaque with his name on it in our back garden. So I can go out there and see that from time to time. Thats just wonderful! Everyone is sharing stories and just being cool and caring about it. It feels good to know that in a world that can seem so fucked up and dark all the time that sometimes some light shines through.

The funeral is next weekend. Ive been asked to pallbearer. Its a huge honor for me and im trying to mentally prepare myself for whatever it is I have to do for it. And also to handle the viewing and all that. After that, there is the therapy of Horrorhound, and the weekend after that is the Drive Inn movie camping thing we all planned to go to. Im still going to it because I feel like he'd want me to go. His ghost will be with us the whole time, very easily felt. It will be good therapy for me to just do these things and celebrate all of our lives, past-future. To try to appreciate what we do have.

There is still so much to do beyond that, but its best to tackle the days as they come.

In my life, progress has been made. This weekend my ex GF came and got her things from our apartment. Now I can completely focus my efforts on me and Kitty D's move to East Lansing in two weeks. We got a lot of stuff already packed but now we gotta go down to the bare essentials. My friend Matt came up this weekend and drank Friday and Saturday with us. I really needed that and cannot thank him enough. I bought his lunch as a thank you. He's certainly seen me cry a couple times this weekend. Cannot be easy to see for anyone to deal with.

This week im going to focus on eating even better, continuing to work out and finishing commissions stuff for a client, as well as pages for Starslam 3, Pleasant Life 2 and the other secret project. Im just going to bury my head into the art again. Its healed me time and time again. The one friend who will always be there to comfort me.

I thank all of you for continuing to read this blog and care about whats going on. I'll share what I can. This will be a rough week for all of us. But we'll make it through. Onward and upward.

--T