Car bombs with alex. Gonna miss you man. Spiderman!Sent from Jason maurer’s iPhone

Yeah. Car bombsSent from Jason maurer’s iPhone

Today I had to make the decision to not go home to see my family over break. I have to post pone it – why you ask? Gas money. With the economy the way it is, back taxes to pay, the divorce looming large – there is no end in sight for the glorious amounts of money that I will be throwing away. So rather than put myself into a deeper hole I have decided to forego my own pleasure and stay here in Savannah. As much as it sucks, I might be able to go home in August or over Winter break after Japan providing I scrimp and save.

I’ve actually contemplated getting a second job. Its amazing. I have a great job, they pay me well and I work pretty hard at not living outside my means and yet I still am struggling. I am planning on putting together a illustration/photo portfolio and a CG portfolio over break to shop around. If that doesn’t pan out, I’m seriously thinking I’m gonna have to go work part-time somewhere – digging ditches or something physical at least. Maybe someone will pay me to walk around and pick up trash.

It really makes me wonder how the rest of the American working public are doing? This used to be a great country, a prosperous country and now, well you all know. It would be a waste of everyone’s time to continue this point. We can only focus on the future and work towards climbing out of the massive economic shit storm that we are in. No use crying over spilled milk – especially when you don’t have any cookies cuz you couldn’t afford to buy them in the first place.

j

So after weeks of struggle, discomfort and general craziness I have managed to get 90% of my stuff removed from my former residence. I have gathered up all the junk that one collects, and crammed it into one medium sized room. The one thing I wasn’t able to take with me was Billie.

Whose Billie you ask? Billie was my dog. My blue healer, my blue dog, my little girl. I’ve had pets most of my life and one has always pretty much been the same as the next. But little bill was something different, she was my companion, she always knew when I was sad, lonely or happy. She was always there to give me that unconditional love that dogs are famous for and cats are without and I left her behind. I willingly let her go.

For weeks I’ve struggled with did I make the right decision by not fighting for her, by agreeing to not separate the the two of them. Letting them stay together because I don’t want to cause them too much stress, because I don’t want to take the children away from their mother. It sounds like I’m talking about children, and in a way I am. They were/are our kids. I remember the day we went and got Billie – I picked her out, and I held her in my hands all the way home she could curl up in the cup of both of my hands that day. She snuggled up in my t-shirt and I was in love from that moment on.

Every time that I have to go back over to the house, to see them it breaks me. Both of them were so very happy to see me the last time I was so overwhelmed. It took everything I had not to cry as I stood there with sherrie looking on as I petted my dog, my friend, my child. The one I left behind. Some sick part of me thinks Sherrie did it on purpose to pay me back for making her leave her first dog Jack in Savannah when we moved to Atlanta, to see me suffer. I tell myself that is petty and that even she wouldn’t do that.

Its amazing to me how strongly animals can affect us, can shape who we are and show us how gentle, protectful, and emotional we should be and how cold, callous and insensitive we are as people. There is such a purity to them, an honesty, a playfulness. I justify my decision by saying to myself that I’ll be better off without a dog to tie me down, remove that level of responsibility that a dog brings. But I think the truth is that I need to lie to myself to keep myself from breaking, that I have to tell myself that it will be ok. Billie is a good dog, and sherrie does care about her and will take good care of her. And so I have resigned myself to this weird sense of limbo, where Billie is alive but dead. Where she only exists in my heart and mind, but not laying next to me on the couch.

I wonder if she misses me. If she wonders why I don’t come home to her anymore or why we don’t go play frisbee in the park or wrestle. I wonder if she will remember me or if as Sherrie put it “She is a dog Jason, all they know is routine why would she miss you?”

J

Well we reach another monday. Really felt icky today – dizzy, and kinda tired. I am struggling with how personal I make this blog, do I keep it superficial or do I step it into what is happening with me. How truman show do I make it? Well I guess I’ll take it each day at a time for now – todays topic Jason as a hypochondriac . For a large part of my life I have struggled with a fear of sickness, which really translates to a fear of death. Ironically I’m not afraid of death itself, but dying the process that leads to death.  Hence this obsession with every pain, hiccup, ache and non-obvious bodily issue. What do I do daily to combat it? Every time something happens that sparks the hypochondriac in me I do my best to catch it and tell myself I’m not gonna die. I focus on clearing my mind using the single candle flame technique. Most of the time it works, when it doesn’t I ride it out or I try and distract myself with a book or something similar. As to why I have this issue… more on that tomorrow…. j 

The old site has been taken down and re-vamped with new and improved JasonMaurer 2.0. Check back April 13th for the official kick off!