In Search Of … — March 13, 2025 – John Agliata

🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Looking For …?🔭
Agony🎶
Problem-Solver📖

THE DAILY UPDATE

“So tell me, John: What exactly is it that you’re looking for in these friendships you’re seeking? In these connections? Is it emotional support? Intellectual stimulation? Something else?”

Yes, yes, and yes. Yes to all of that. Emotional support, for sure. I mean, I am far less needy than I once was and much better able to self-regulate. I’m a resilient son of a bitch and stronger than I have been in a long, long time. But I have no one to share anything with. No one. The very few people in my life aren’t exactly emotional creatures who are comfortable discussing feelings. And I feel everything. So yeah, an emotional support network for that would be great, someone who can say, “I feel ya,” and who actually really does. But also, yeah, intellectual stimulation. Someone to talk about stuff that matters on the bigger picture. Someone who’s down to try new things simply because I’m interested in them, who’d join me in my pursuits and support them without reservation of negative comment. And the “something else?” Yeah, that too. I just want to know that there’s someone out there who looks forward to seeing me, talking to me, being around me. Who would make time in their life to be around me. Right now, I don’t see anyone who fits into these categories. I used to, but …”

But what?

But I made choices. Good choices for good reasons. But not all good choices for good reasons have great results. We sometimes have to make choices because they are the right ones to make for the bigger picture. And because of that, people who fit those definitions of emotional support, intellectual stimulation, down-for-whatever? They are gone. Gone. And they really don’t like me.

That has to be hard to live with.

It is. I deserve their feelings toward me. That doesn’t mean I like it or wouldn’t give a whole helluva lot to change it.

How can you change it?

That’s the thing. I’ve gone over these situations a million times from a million angles. Every single one of them has the potential to hurt people I care about, cared about, or the very few people who still care about me.

So instead …

So instead I do nothing and I hope for God or the universe or them or whatever it is to take care of it, to spark action in others so I can react instead of initiate.

And in the meantime …

And in the meantime, I’m getting older, more lonely, more isolated, and less happy. I find myself thinking about certain realities in my life and wondering what exactly it is that keeps me Here. I feel like I’ve been resilient enough in this life. I don’t want to be resilient anymore. I don’t feel like I’m asking for much. I want a person or two in my life who cares that I exist and who would make time for me because they enjoy me being in their lives. That’s all. Not having that now makes me realize how stupid I was to not appreciate it when it was.

John, all of this is signs of growth.

Really? Because what it seems like to me is a sign of loneliness. I look back at the me of my late teens and early 20s, and there was so much promise. My career, my friendships, my relationships. And I look where things are today … and it feels like, at the moment, I’m just playing out the string and waiting to die. I am proud of my boys. They are good young men, and they are my only good lasting legacy here. I am still Here because of them. But the elder doesn’t need me much now as a married professional, and the younger is hot on his heals. I’m not all that far away from having an extremely small role in the furtherance of that legacy, and that frightens the hell out of me.

Why?

Because then what would keep me Here? It’s not the feeling of any usefulness to anyone outside my immediate family. I’m a writer. So what? Other people can write. I’m resilient. So what? Resilience has its breaking point. Living because you are resilient to life’s travails is not exactly a good reason to live. So what happens to me then?

John, these things take time. You never know when one of those relationships, those friendships you’re seeking, will develop.

I’ve been saying that for years now, and I’m no closer to it than I was when I started. I have tried. I have given it time. I have put myself out there. Repeatedly. And yet here I am, today, alone. That doesn’t change overnight. I get it. But I’d love to look back a few years and see that progress has, indeed, been made, that all the time and effort has led to something. It hasn’t. And I really am starting to think it won’t.

Something I’m grateful for today: Worther’s Originals.

Something I’ve (ghost)written: The Problem-Solver’s Program

Song of the Day: Dear Agony, by Breaking Benjamin

Meaningful lyric from the S.O.T.D.:

Somewhere far beyond this world
I feel nothing anymore

Something good from today/yesterday: A brief conversation with the Green-Haired Girl about books.

Something I’m looking forward to in the next seven days: My daughter-in-law’s birthday dinner

Fat-Ass Update:

Starting weight: 230.6 on 2/12/25
Goal weight (for now): 199.9
Today’s weight 220.9 (-9.7)
Fat-ass burn-off remaining: 21.0 fat-ass pounds

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