And bitterness

It's so hard not to be bitter.

Yesterday, I did a cull of the old photo albums, from before I came here, before Jonathan was born.  Back in the day when my first marriage was relatively happy (including the wedding pictures), when I was in grad school, when I was hopeful and everything seemed ahead of me.

Joe referred to this part of life as "on the back nine" today, and I feel like it's been a crappy game, and how much can you do in those last nine holes?  I look at the faces in these pictures... so many people who are dead now, my mother, my best friend's parents, my uncle... others too, I'm sure.  And my grad school buddies, who I thought would be my friends forever... there is exactly one of them who I know where is really, and I am in touch with none of them. 

It's pointless to look at these things, and I threw most of them away.  I don't think that I want to revisit much of this.  I'll scan the handful of pics that I saved at some point.  But I can't help but think, too, of the handful of pictures that Michael left behind.  There's no one to pass those pictures on to, no one who will care.  I don't even want to look at them, because like everything else, they make me angry or sad.  All about tragedy, and that young boy who I wanted to save, the pure loving heart trapped inside all of the illness and crap.

I can't bear the sadness tonight.  There's nothing to diffuse it.