As we do here occasionally on ‘Coma, I write about things that you probably don’t give two damns about. I also like to go give options, so if I am boring the shit out of you, here is a wonderful video of monkeys cannon balling into a pool. It may be one of the best things you will ever see and I don’t say that lightly.

This past year has been a very interesting excursion for me about patience, loss and realism. I’ve had to learn some very difficult lessons about what is real, what is not and how things aren’t always as they seem. During this time, I have also backed up from Newscoma. I used to blog here in a reckless incessant manner where I enjoyed every second of just being a part of a big old blogging community in Tennessee. When I moved up to Nashville and left Hoots, I took a job that didn’t fit. The same week that I left that job, my partner was let go from her job that she had for years.  There was no use whining about it, it was just a week that happened more than 17 months ago that we have still been reeling from.

Opportunities arose and that was good. Roadblocks also showed up which left me a bit breathless and I guess in some ways I became a bit of a hermit because I was lost. Being lost is something that I’m not used to. I’ve always been in control of my path or at least I thought so but, man, this year has been a doozy finding what is real or what my friend Steve Ross calls vaporware.

I’ve seen a lot of vaporware this year and I think that it beat me down. I guess I depended on things that weren’t real but I thought they were. Reality can beat you up sometimes.

I’m lucky that I get to aggregate the Daily Buzz every day and I enjoy it but I admit that this is a morning gig and my afternoons have been a bit of a struggle. A.) I need something else to do and B.) I am paylance these days. Lots of people contact me, yet few want to pay for what they call and ask me to do.  This has been a learning experience for me.

Didn’t expect this at 46 years-old.

So about two months ago, I decided without reservations to shut down ‘Coma (no, I’d leave the archives up but I was just going to walk away and not make a big deal of it.) Why, you may ask? There were a lot of reasons but I guess the main one was that I was not feeling particularly relevant and I didn’t feel like a part of any community anymore. I had lost my passion and honestly, the things I used to do here are being done elsewhere. The weird stuff I found is being overshared on Facebook these days. The politics that I am very passionate about were sometimes dismissed. I no longer live in Hoots which I was an advocate for and I felt a lot like a statistic in the big, old city.  I realize that much of this was my fault because I created a stagnant pool of water that I had trouble getting out of.

I felt like I was just adding to the ongoing noise and a few incidents in the past few months made me question a great deal of who I was, what I am about and where I am going. I thought I went through this in my twenties but it reared its ugly head again and left me a bit broken.

And I felt very much alone. This is also my own fault. I didn’t know how to reach out correctly to the right people. And then my car messed up after I had put a lot of money in it, so I not only felt stuck, I felt lost and isolated.

So I did a lot of questioning that I probably made the wrong decision to move to Nashville.  I didn’t feel like I was a part of anything and it wasn’t a great feeling to have.

Now the only reason why I’m writing this is that I want to and also because there were some people that have been helping me out of my funk without even knowing that they have been throwing a lifeline out to me by just being nice, friendly and supportive.

And to the nice lady from Knoxville, you have saved me more than you will ever know. (Private and yet her lifesaver has been a huge difference on me continuing here or closing down shop.) Thank you.

Although I have private thank yous to send, I want to take a moment to say that sometimes random, or even deliberate, acts of kindness that aren’t dripping in sarcasm or the downright hostility I’ve seen recently have been much appreciated. I know a few things, I am going to have to find additional work to buy a new to me lovingly formerly owned car and much needed health insurance. That’s okay. I can do that. I’ve been trying but this is a new world. Experience doesn’t really matter these days so I’m still trying to figure that out. As you get older, you do deal with some ageism, something I never expected to encounter. I missed the memo on this one. I guess these days it would be called a meme. (Geek Humor alert.)

The one thing I do know is that kind, supportive people are out there. And it is important to recognize that without a community, people like myself sometimes flounder and I have been a gasping fish on the beach.

Community is everything in my opinion these days.

For me at least, it has been kind words and encouragement that have saved me from a debilitating loss of faith.

So, you know who you are and thank you.