Support Network

This is a letter written during one of the darker times of a life lived in twilight. I think you can see the disjointed nature of my thoughts along with the desperation and gloom.

1^st October 2010

Dear Cassi,

On Thursday I realized that my fast food habit was only a front for my caffeine habit. I woke up to the feeling of a sumo wrestler straddling my face. My head was pounding, my throat was dry, and I was having trouble breathing. Not that I couldn't breathe, actually, but that I kept forgetting. As my pen ran along the graphite lines of my Friday comic I kept realizing that I was holding my breath and would have to stop and breathe for a few seconds.

The pounding heat of the last few days was no help in this regard, and also having to hold off to wipe the perspiration from my hands was something of a bother. That's one of the reasons I sometimes think I should table this whole comic thing. I like drawing them and all, but putting one out every day isn't easy. Moreover, promotion is the big problem. Will I run out of ideas when it finally takes off? I have a plan for the comic for the next ten years so I can get it done, but it will take some digging.

I stopped eating fast food, because I think I should spend more on keeping things running and getting the equipment I need to make internet content. If I had all the money I spent on fast food in the last four years back I'd probably be able to get all the advertising I could need for my comic or YouTube channel.

I don't know, friends and family are what is called a support network, but being a man with few friends I find myself becoming someone who shouldn't go looking for help. I've got to get things done on my own. I went to college to look for help and got a big "pay us more", I looked to people I thought where my friends and had to drill them like Sergeant Dicks to get anything useful out of them. If feels to me as if most of the people I know are just empty husks. They can't feel the world around them. Like they have all gone numb.

Much like my Pickles and the dog. Pickles just refuses to take care of the poor animal so that the fungus has taken over large spots on his fur. If he would do only half or even a third of what that dog needs the animal would be in much better health, but he finds excuses to neglect the dog. The animal's suffering is something to witch Pickles is oblivious. That should not surprise me as he was just as oblivious to my own suffering when I was still talking to Alan. When my family had pushed me to the point of near death not one voice spoke out for me. No one single human being would do so little as to admit that what was happening to me was unfair. Then people wonder why I have had so little to do with the human race.

Still, I've taken to looking after the dog. Well, more that I have given up on expecting Pickles to have any hand in taking care of Gus. I’ve given up on him taking any real responsibility. The only conclusion to the problem of Pickles is to assume he is not there and get his responsibilities taken care of on my own. I grant, it's hard to pretend a person isn't there when he leaves a mess in the think for you, but cleaning up after myself will get a lot easier when I actually only have myself to look after.

Well, I need to get ready for work now so I'll have to cut it short.

Keep that chin up!

Richard Leland Neal