After totally venting myself in my last entry I feel like some of that weight has come off of me. I won�t go so far as to say life is great or wonderful or anything stupid like that, but I�m doing OK. It seems like the death of my best friend really did a number on me, I never really thought about or dwelled upon death until the day he passed on. It was just one of those friendships that should have gone on for a lifetime, you know, a house across the street from each other, our kids growing up together, that kind of thing.

As I mentioned last entry, there really hasn�t been any kind of happiness that has countered the magnitude of sadness that was triggered by his passing, which is probably why life has life has never quite been the same since then. There were times I found myself wishing for my own death so I could follow him to the other side, just like I�ve followed him so many times in life. It�s weird and somewhat morbidly amusing because somehow since then I�ve become less afraid of death. Somewhere in my subconscious mind, I�d welcome death into my door, pour it a cup of coffee stare at its bony face and yell �WTF is taking so long, when is it my fucking turn bitch?� and then I�d wake up the next morning to that sickening screech of my alarm clock, pissed that I have to put up with yet another day of life.

Don�t get me wrong, just because I don�t fear death anymore, it doesn�t mean I�ve suddenly become fearless. If anything, I�ve somehow become more afraid of life and I�ve become more fearful of living. Although I have my gut feelings, speculations and my hopes, I really don�t know what is on the other side. For all I know it all ends once you die. Still, death has strangely turned into a possible escape route from the pain, sadness, loneliness and the emptiness that has somehow become my life. It�s been almost 5 years since his passing and I�ve been waiting and hoping for life to show me something better, something different, but really not too much has changed and part of me still finds simply ceasing to exist as a more desirable alternative to living a lifetime of feeling sad and empty.

But then I put some more thought into it. When you die you don�t exactly just vanish into some void. You somehow leave a part of yourself behind in the hearts and minds of those who still live and who still care about you. By wishing death upon myself, I am however directly or indirectly, wishing the same pain and suffering that I am experiencing now, upon those who are the closest and care most for me. Looking at things in that way, it seems that the answer to coping with death is not more death. It also seems like there is plenty of death in this world, so much in fact that it would be silly of me to wish for more of it, even if I am just wishing it upon myself.

So the question remains, aside from simply living and breathing, which is pretty much a given, what truly makes life worth living? The answer to that question is that I don�t know. I thought the answer to death would be life. Perhaps bringing a child of my own into this world will turn my own life around, but then I look up and I take a look around me, especially the friends my age who rushed into the whole marriage with children thing. A couple of my closest friends married well in the financial sense and gave up decent professions in order to be stay at home moms. For some reason they seem beleaguered, almost overwhelmed by the �chore� of raising a child.

Although I have hope and faith that they, over time will eventually appreciate parenthood in more profound ways, one thing became clear to me. I cannot jump into parenthood just because it is the thing I�m �supposed� to do at my age or because I�m trying to fulfill some void in my life. Of course that�s not counting the fact that I�ve been having trouble as of late to find a willing recipient of my man chowder. Add on top of all that the fact that I�m pretty damn immature for someone of my annual stature and we can pretty much chalk it up to me not being ready to be a daddy at this time.

There are of course some of the more profound things in life I can pursue such as love, friendship and happiness. Although there�s not too much of it coming my way I do at least try to keep an eye out for it. If anything, it may just be waiting for me to make the first move. Whatever, I don�t really know at this point. In the end I don�t really have anything terribly profound to say other than me just needing to shift my life into a different gear, anything other than this ditch of death I seem to have driven myself into.