It’s more than a bit peculiar, peeking in here after so many years away. Shortly after my last post, i met someone and we almost instantly fell in love. For half a year we shared an extraordinary time together, making love for hours and hours, laughing, eating exquisite food and enjoying the exceptional weed i grew. Yeah, i was a grower back then, was for years, but like any successful grower, i kept that shit under wraps. That year was one of my best. Each crop was bountiful and i had a reliable buyer. I had money, i had love. It felt like life was finally shining in my favor. But then it slowly fell apart. Things dried up with my buyer. She became distant. I retreated behind a mask, hiding my worry and insecurity. I got t-boned by a cadillac suv, totaling my beloved volvo, but sparing me. Then my mother died. It was my winter of perpetual calamity. I lost my mind. I lost her. My health tanked; that pesky ailment that riddled me for years came out of remission and curb stomped me when i was already at such a low in my life. I picked myself up, though. After ten years or flare-ups and remissions, i had figured out some tricks to smooth things out. At the time, i thought i was wrestling with chronic Lyme, but later i figured out it was a type of Parkinson’s. Eventually, after five more years of shit getting way worse, i figured it out; the riddle, that is. I cured myself. Seriously. But that’s a whole other long-ass story. I stayed in the game as long as i could, but it was changing faster than i could adapt. Prices kept dropping. Buyers got sketchier. I got burned for so much money. The final straw was when a buyer got popped by the feds. Shit got very real, real fast. I shut everything down. Call it white privilege or call it lucky as fuk, but nobody ever came knocking at my door. But, i was out and i had no intention of going back. An era had ended. I should have probably quit when a buy went awry and i took a little chunk of shrapnel to my chest. I was under a delusion that i could get those good times back; the money, the woman, all of it. It’s weird now, looking back at this past decade or so. None of it really seems real. It’s so far away from my life now. Thankful I am to have my health, but i can’t begin to express how empty life feels having not been truly in love once since her. It hasn’t been for a lack of trying, but at some point, with each new connection being emptier than the last, it’s better to cut one’s losses. I miss the stacks of cash, too, but not nearly as much as the bliss of Love. The crux of what i miss, and likely why i found myself here again, is my youth. I miss knowing there’s still time; to start over, to meet someone new and to build a new life together. Now, when i see these beautiful naked young women here, it’s only the ghost of my younger self that feels desire. The one in the driver’s seat, this aging and lonely man, he’s now a paternal old bachelor. He just sees reminders of past adventures, but mostly he just hopes all the models are happy, respected, properly loved and safe. I know i’m just an anachronism here now. All my friends have since left, and these words will fall scattered on the dusty floor of an empty dancehall. But if you find them, take them to heart and heed their cautionary tale. Live while you can. Love deeply for as long as you can. And know that sometimes, the best way to love someone is to disappear. ✌️

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