When you are a proud person, raised in a strange (abusive) environment, and you grow "old," the conditions of your age automatically become "embarrassing." First we need to quibble with something-- all of my friends tell me 36 years old is not "old." And when most of these things happened I was 35, which is "even less old." I have 40 year old friends who tell me I'm not old. My 30 year old best friend (happy birthday Esther!) tells me I'm "not old." My 35 year old wife (I'm older than her! Hi honey!) tells me I'm "not old." I have to counter-- old is not a function of age to me.
To me, Old is a framework of living that is eventually inflicted on you. I have an uncle who died at 62 after having essentially a decade long psychotic bender which spanned the entirety of his life as a retiree-- a life that was well-lived, like an old sweater is well-worn, setting aside moral dimensions. Dozens of consecutive, concurrent affairs with women his age, younger than him, older than him, and ILLEGALLY younger than him. Pack a day smoker, one time I saw him at a family reunion and my dad had to stop him from getting me to smoke because he looked THAT COOL when he was smoking and he was THAT WILLING to give me smokes-- when I was TWELVE. My uncle had resting blood alcohol levels that would have set off breathalyzers two counties away. One time at a family reunion my dad had to stop him from giving me hard liquor, which I meekly asked for because he looked THAT COOL drinking Bacardi rum (made in Puerto Rico! proud of my country!) and he was THAT WILLING to give me hard liquor-- when I was TWELVE. He was loaded (for my decidedly "broke ass" family), and he was always talking about the military. He retired from the military due to disability, as all my other uncles had and as I won't, because my bit of the family decided not to be a military family and I failed to alter this destiny in a fit of personal self destruction in the late aughts which my dad instantly cured with his fist (my dad was dishonorably discharged, for being too funny to his officers.) (65th Infantry Regiment, Puerto Rico! It became a mobility enhancement brigade after that. Not proud of my country!)
My uncle died of a stroke the doctors called "powerful" at the age of 62. He also had "several concerning cancers" which he ignored and which did not appear to have killed him, according to the doctors. He had a stroke, possibly because he was always on drugs (my words, not doctor words) while being advanced in age and comorbid for a variety of other hedonistic self destructive behaviors. He was survived by six children from several marriages and divorces. Illegimate children of this uncle sometimes bother my dad TO THIS DAY. This is a testament to me of how my uncle died at 62 being decidedly "not old." I'm old at 36. I'm always tired, my internal organs don't work good anymore, my knees are bad, and I have had a headache for 24 hours. I have a desk job and work from home. I eat whole grains and lots of protein. This is our framework for this story, which starts in 2024, when I developed an embarrassing condition which is endemic to several family members and which periodically sends me to expensive hospital visits. It will not kill me, not by itself-- it will just make me a paranoid frequent visitor of "the hospital" (whichever hospital it happens to be) for the rest of my life.
I didn't even smoke a pack a day to get here. I've basically wasted my life.
I am a private person generally. This is why this story is kinda vague. You don't need to know anything except this-- in the middle 2024, I basically all but stopped reading my genuinely not very popular web novel "Unjust Depths." I was met with many kind reactions which I, a paranoid anti-social person, chose to read as ingenuine, and I have been slow-motion beating myself to a pulp about my inability to write a weekly webnovel since then. My wife tells me that probably most of my readers are kindly, patiently waiting for me to return sometime. I never believe her. I imagine instead that they just don't think of me at all-- *I* wouldn't think of me at all in this situation. But that when they *do* think of me, as I sometimes think about random media I consumed years ago, they probably have a mostly negative view of me as an author of a thing they briefly interacted with. *I* would have a mostly negative view of myself. I *do* have a mostly negative view of myself right now!
The problems began in 2023. I stopped writing weekly at that point. Instead I wrote twice a month. The issue in 2023 was also a deterioration of my health related to my condition, but it was also because i had moved on to a new position at my day job, which was very stressful. Every day