For the first time in memory, I've been telling anyone who asks me what I do the truth: I don't know, that I'm still figuring it out – and, while I rarely provide context or qualification for my answer (after all the upheaval the last few years, I'm still learning to live without them, for better and for worse, and it's put the question of how much of my life – and theirs – did I waste on these creative pursuits), I'm always shocked by the universal reply: some variation of That's great or Good for you.

Wish I had more of a insight into what I think of that response, but I'm still figuring it out, processing the shock: Growing up, it was all "what's your plan, blah blah blah"; maybe there's a shift that happens when you reach middle age?

I was advised by my doctor to seek counseling for grief, but I've (so far) resisted it: I'm one of the weird ones who enjoyed therapy, found it a stimulating intellectual exercise and dialogue, but, unless they can give me concrete steps to find a purpose, there's no point. Perhaps now I can start to use the real answer to "How are you?": Fine when I'm doing something – moving gravel, writing weird shit that no one reads, building BabyShed – fucking awful when I have time to think.

(Unless I'm using that time to think as time to write (weird shit that no one reads): this process of processing really does help – but I wish I could expand it out throughout the day and enjoy it as much as I do in these early morning, pre-people hours but I know myself well enough to know that any attempt to do that will kill the joy of these early morning hours).

Suppose this could use a conclusion – but there isn't one. Ongoing process (of processing).