Dwynter's blog

I don't post here very much, not like I used to many years ago. Well, months. I used to be in the top twenty posters, but not anymore. Not that that's very important.

What I mean is, I used to visit this site every day, and spend most of my day here, from when I got up to when I went to work, or go to do my weekend chores, or sometimes until I went to sleep. And when I wasn't posting, I was hanging out on the radio. Then, I realized nothing else was getting done in my life. I wasn't writing, I wasn't getting things done. So I started wandering away, forcing myself to take a day or two off. And that became a week off, then a month, and I suddenly realized I hadn't been on for several months at a time. That was back around the beginning of the summer, and since then, I've come on a bit more often, but nothing like I used to be.

I used to greet every single new person that joined and posted an intro. I tried my best to respond to everyone, because I know what it's like to be passed over, feeling like I'm being ignored, when, in fact, no one had anything in particular to say to my comment. Not everyone understands this.

I think at first I posted constantly because I was sort of popular, and I've never bee even slightly popular - ever! In fact, I'm rather shy and quiet in real life. Unless you're talking about one of my favorite things - space, history, ponies, comics - I don't talk much even if directly spoken to. And here, everyone seemed so happy to see me, and talk to me, it was overwhelming! People talked to me on Skype, which was very unique as most of my friends in RL (both of them) don't like chatting on such devices. I don't always like it either, but if you say something to me in Skype or Facebook, I'll be happy to talk for a while.

I did enjoy being popular, even if only minorly so. It made me want to be more of a part of Everypony. I wanted to do karaoke, and the secret Santa, and even thought about becoming a moderator. I wanted people to come to me with their problems, seeking my wisdom and understanding.

I suppose I should mention here, if you don't know, I'm one of the oldest bronies on here - and that may be part of the reason for my semi-popularity: I was an oddity.

I realize I'm not going to be "that" guy - the one everyone goes to for advice, for help, for a comforting shoulder. I wish I was - and maybe I am with some people. And I'm not going to be that guy I once was - posting ten times every day, getting PM's every week, and notifications every day.

But, I don't plan on leaving, either. I suppose I need Everypony more than it needs me, but I'll come by here when I can, and post a few silly things, maybe making a thread now and then, and I'll talk to anyone who wants to - Sky, Facebook or right here at Everypony - and if it falls on the right day, maybe I'll sing some karaoke with those that do that sort of things, and if I get enough money, I'll join the secret Santa - next year should be better, unless my cat gets sick again. And, of course, I'll always be brony.

In closing, I'd like to say thanks for making all the time I've spent here enjoyable. Not all of the people I remember from my first joining are still here, but that's OK - people need to go down their own paths. Maybe I'll cross them again.

Just remember, you're entire life has led you to this point, to being at your computer, reading this silly blog statement, searching for something meaningful to say, trying to explain what's in my heart and head, and still failing. And for that, I thank you.

Hey, hello everypony that remembers me! Maybe two of you by now.

Seriously, though, I haven't died, or quit unannounced. I have,however, had a rough couple of months. Let me elaborate.

In early September, my father became ill. He apparently had an infection in his liver, and he came pretty close to dieing - twice. He apparently had an abscess on his liver, which goes to show you the importance of brushing your teeth. He hardly ever did, and now he has many thousands of dollars of dental work, lots of pain, and the infection spread to his liver as a result, and filling his pleura with fluid. Or, to use the technical term the doctor gave us, gunk. The pleura, by the way, is the large sack each your lungs sit in. And after a week of giving him some fairly hard pain medication, as well as antibiotic, he had a new problem - his memory failed him. For a while, he completely forgot where he was, or why he was there, and even had trouble recognizing my brother. The doctors think they over-did the medication. Afterwards, until about three weeks ago, he had some memory lapses. He didn't forget who he was, or who I was, or things like that. It was little things, like, he'd become fixated on his oxygen mask, and kept wanting me to crank it up higher, even though there was no way I could do that.

The whole time he was sick, about four or five weeks, I had a hard time caring. You see, my father and me, we don't get along very well at all. Although, it's only been these last few months that I began to realize just how bad and damaged our relationship is. You see, he's a bully. As long as he gets his way, and i do what he says, we're fine. Do what I want, try to stand up for myself, and there's trouble. And, oddly enough, even though I realized his controlling ways years ago, I never thought of him as a bully until my dear friend pointed it out, and, slowly, I'll admit, I realized she was right.

I could go on about my father for quite a while, but I don't think there's any need. Let's just say, he was very sick, and I really didn't care. I only wondered if he died, what kinds of things would I have to do?

And just as he was getting better, I learned my cat had hyperthyroidism. He's taking medicine, and getting better, but then he had an episode of throwing up all night. Turned out to be an inflamed stomach lining. He seems to have recovered from that, except he's not drinking much water. And I got about two hours before I can call the vet.

I know, TL/DR. Well, now that you've skipped to here, here's the short of it: My dad was sick, and I didn't care. My cat is sick, and I care more about him than him.

And work! Don't talk to me about work!

About two months ago, I was going to blog about my pets. It was going to start out with, "I have two cats, both of which are getting quite old. One day, I know I will loose them."

Well, that day came to pass July 9th for one of them.

Let me back up a bit. These last ten years, I've had three cats, all indoors. The lone female was Zombie, and the males were Cassanova and Thrawn, in order of age. Zombie died about seven years ago of kidney failure. Thrawn, the youngest, died suddenly for completely unknown reasons six weeks ago today. I didn't have much time to mourn over it, as I had to go to work the very next day. Thrawn was my wife's cat, really. He spent his time around her, laying near her, following her around the house, all the typical things you might expect. He was also pretty fat, weighing twenty pounds, and he had a slight deformity in his front legs, so he walked a little bow-legged in the front. They were also slightly shorter than his back legs, so I referred to him as a bulldog. He also had some breathing problems that the vet couldn't really figure out. He didn't seem to have any trouble, so he said just to keep an eye on it.

Now, another thing to know about me is that about five years ago, my life began to change, and in not a good way. I lost my job, and had to take one that paid 30% less. One side effect was, we stopped taking the cats to the vet. By this time, we only had the two, but even that was a difficult expense to fit into the budget. So, we got out of the habit of taking them to the vet.

And then Thrawn suddenly got sick, and there was nothing we could do for him. We had to put him down as we didn't want him to suffer.

At first, it was just sad, but as time went by, and I had some time to think on it, I began to feel guilty. I actually had to borrow the money to take him down to the vet this last time. And I feared that if I had bit the bullet and taken him to the vet regularly, maybe he'd still be with us. Maybe whatever hit him would've been spotted and we could have it cheaply fixed. Worse, since it was my wife's cat, she was devastated. No one expects the youngest to die first. They're supposed to die in order from oldest to youngest. And it was, as I said, her cat. She went through a period of a couple of weeks in which she didn't do anything except dwell on Thrawn, and all of her art work became centered on Thrawn. And she didn't eat much. Maybe one small meal a day, or even every other day.

And to top it off, our other cat, Cassanova, was very confused. Him and Thrawn were pretty good buds, and he started wandering around the house crying, wondering where his buddy went. He even started not eating. Sometimes he would cry into the night, waking me up. A full night's sleep meant nothing anymore. I started to withdraw, and hide from the world, avoiding my friends, not talking to any body, not coming here. I couldn't write, as I was usually too tired to focus. I worried that my job might suffer, and I could have gotten fired.

All this really stressed me out. In fact, I developed insomnia, and starting having anxiety attacks. Finally, on one of the walk's my wife and I take, I told her how guilty I felt, and that it was my fault Thrawn had died, since I didn't have a better job that could afford to pay for all this. She didn't blame me, of course. It didn't quite make me feel better, but it started the process.

Cassanova still cries a bit more than he used to, but he's eating more. So's my wife. She's kind of happy she lost eight pounds, in fact. And I'm about to get a money influx. I could have used it earlier, but, oh well. I can still use it.

Lately, I've come to realize what it means to stop being sad, and just moving on. I'm still not entirely certain how to do it, but I suppose I'll figure that out as I go along. I'm not sad Thrawn died anymore, but I am sad I didn't talk to anyone sooner. It may have saved me a lot of stress. It just felt like - no one was available. I hate to be the "wet rag," as we said when I was younger. I can be such a hypocrite at times. I'm always encouraging people around me to talk when they're down, if not to me, then to some one else, some one they trust. For me, the two people I trust the most weren't quite available. One was depressed herself, the other was, well, exhausted I'll say.

OK, I've talked enough. Time to get on with life.

A little about myself first - I'm considered mildly depressed, in a clinical sense. I suppose that's because I'm not crippled by my depression, but I generally have a low level of depression all the time, a sort of general unhappiness that fades at times (like when I watch ponies), and at other times it becomes a crushing weight that makes me just want to crawl into bed and not come out.

Or, I should say, I used to be like that. I'm still depressed, but not nearly so bad. After a couple of years of therapy, I have some tools to deal with my depression. I still get down, but not like I was.

I bring this up because of a recurring dream I used to have, but haven't in a long time.

It used to be there was a bus I used to ride in my dreams. It was black, and there wasn't much lighting on the inside, and it was crowded with hostile people all glaring at me. I never knew how I got on the bus, and every time I tried to get off, those glaring, hostile, faceless people would push me back into my seat, or ignore me, or, in the worse dreams, physically threaten me. The days I woke up from that dream were the worse.

Then I went to therapy. And one day, I was dreaming about that bus, that black bus. Except that everyone was just sitting on the bus, like a normal ride. No one glared at me, in fact, I could even make out faces. And outside the bus, instead of the eternal night I used to ride through, the sun was rising. I could see we were driving over a bridge, and I looked around with wonder and amazement. Then, the buss pulled into a rest stop, and the driver announced, "End of the line," and got out. For a moment, I panicked. End of the line? Is this it? Do I die? But, then, people started getting off the bus, and I went with them. Soon, I was standing on the side of a busy road, in some sort of intersection with a major highway and smaller roads leading off from this point. I could fly high above us (mentally at least, I don't think I was actually flying), and see that the roads went off in all directions. And I could see myself, standing on the side of the road, watching traffic go by, with no idea where I was, but feeling free for the first time of that bus.

When I talk to other people about dreams, one question almost instantly gets asked: "Do dreams have meaning?" I think, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Sometimes, it's just our brain sorting through events and random thoughts. Other times, it's something we understand on a subconscious level, but not consciously. So, it percolates up through the subconscious into our conscious by way of dreams.

The dream about my grandparents was just my three year old mind trying to sort through what I'd been through. The dream in the fifth grade about dinosaurs was just a fun dream. The bus dream - well.

The bus dream was my conscious mind telling me over and over again that things were hopeless, pointless, that no matter what I did, it would fail. The final dream, however, was something I finally understood on a subconscious level while in therapy. I don't have to do the same thing over and over again. I can get off the bus. In truth, I chose to stay on the bus because I was used to that, it was something I understood and could deal with, after a fashion. Trying to leave behind all those fears and hatreds - that was something I was afraid of doing. Because as bad as those things were, I understood them. I understood where I stood with them. It was the bottom, true, but I understood that. Once I got off that bus - or train of thought - I had many, many other roads open to me. And, once I refused to give them power, the evil people of my dreams could do nothing but let me go on. Their only power over me was the power I gave them. And I gave them a lot!

So now I realize I don't have to be that way. I can be whatever way I want to be. I can travel down any road - well, almost any road - I want to. And it's scary, and sometimes I just don't know what to do, but I'll keep moving forward, for anything is better than riding that black bus.

Do dreams have meaning? Of course they do. They have the meaning you give them.

I'm one of those lucky people that remember his dreams in great detail, even having lucid dreams. I'm a bit unique as while my childhood is a bit blurry, my dreams aren't.

When I was about three, I went to see my grandfather in Texas. I live in California, and my dad couldn't get away, so instead of driving, my mom flew herself, my brother, and I out to visit her father. I don't remember much of the visit, except their living room, which I remember as being huge. Although, since I was three, it was probably normal sized. My brother, even though he was six months old, described in detail various things about the house. My mom was quite shocked.

But all I really remember about it was the return trip home. I remember the plane turning on its side, so we could look down and wave good-bye to my grandparents, whom I never saw again, actually. Now, for many years, it seemed perfectly reasonable that the plane would fly over my grandparents house, and then turn sideways so three people on a plane of about 100 could wave at some relatives. One day, I'm not sure how many years later, I realized the error in my thinking, and also realized that had to be the first dream I could recall.

It's kind of strange to think of dreams I had as a small child. I knew I dreamed, of course, but to actually recall one, some 44 years later in detail - it just blows my mind away every time I think of it.

The next dream I recall was when I was in the fifth grade. It was a much more complicated dream, with dinosaurs and time travel and cyrogenics, but it really caught my attention, and I wrote it down. That started me on the journey of writing my dreams. At first, I didn't keep them, and only the ones that really made an impression stayed with me. But, when I was 19, I started writing every dream I could remember, and every detail I could remember. It took a lot of time, as I wrote by hand, not having a computer in those days.

And the more I wrote down, the more I realized I could remember dreams, and the more lucid they became. In a dream, I'd hug a friend, and I'd wake up, still feeling like that person was in my arms. So I started experimenting, and found that I could actually control my dreams to some degree. After a while, I found I didn't like doing that as much as I thought I would. Taking the random out of dreams kind of ruins the fun. So, I only did it if things started going bad.

Oh, yes, bad dreams. I've had a few. But I'm going to stop here for a moment, and continue tomorrow, explaining what I'm getting at with all this dream talk.

Well, here we are - Entry #1 to my Boring Blog.

What shall I talk about? Well, first off, no ponies. This will be strictly no ponies.

Ha, just kidding. Let me start off by saying, today is my Broniversary. That is, about one year ago today, I became a Brony. I'm not sure of the exact day, but I think it was around here. I remember it was just after the Summer Sun Celebration, and my closest days off lead me to say - June 25th, 2011.

Thought that would make a good day to start a blog.

I guess I'll talk about my favorite things here, which will include Ponies, and also anime, space, science in general, and on rare occasions, sports. Also - other things that haven't occurred to me yet. Maybe politics if I can get away with it.

Well, this is just a start. I'll probably write longer when I have more time, but right now I'm, uh, busy. Yeah.

Or lazy.

Talk more later.