WARNING - Morbid old man writing about his feelings

So it’s almost the end of another year, and the start of a new one.

I’m still here despite an overwhelming desire to leave this world of ruin.

I sit here among all my “toys” and my mind turns to the thought “what will happen to it all when I am gone”?  Well, what will happen?  None of my family has shown any interest or passion that I have for my hobby.  Will what I have accumulated over five decades be tossed out, sold or even kept?  Who knows?  Ultimately what my family decide to do with it all is up to them, but it makes me wonder what I should be doing.

When I was young and entered the world of gaming I had more “friends” than I could poke a stick at.  I was in a unique position to have a house, a wife who actually played games (or at least pretended to) and a venue for people to come game at.  I was generous to others and thought I had the respect and friendship from others in return.  The 1980’s were not a good decade to me; my health had started to decline along with my mind.  So instead of my “friends” supporting me they deserted me, and the start of my gaming life alone began.  Where I was an active role-player I moved to miniatures where I didn't need to have a large circle of “friends”. 

So the years rolled on.  I collected more from the need to feel happy, there is something in the phrase “retail therapy”.  What I accumulated became the envy of others, and led to increased loneliness.  I have been generous in my gifting over the years, but has it led to a greater enrichment of social interaction with my peers.  No it has not.  I am even lonelier now than I was when I first started to withdraw. 

My compulsive nature is to see others happy.  I have the belief that if I see my actions bring enjoyment then I can through that action achieve some measure of that enjoyment in return.  The only difficulty with this is that it has brought about a “martyr” complex. This is where my actions impact on my own welfare and over time has taken their toll.  My unreal expectations that others should reciprocate in a similar fashion have harmed me immeasurably.  Yet I still do it.  Why?  I do it knowing that if my actions only get one person in many starting to genuinely appreciate what I have done, then I can feel vindicated in my actions.  I am of course always saddened that others fail to see the significance of what I do, they are ultimately nothing but the many “users” who now populate this greedy and self-centered world in which we live.

The Christmas and New Year period, along with my birthday are two critical points in time when it comes to surviving.  I volunteer work where I read police and autopsy reports of people who have killed themselves, in other words - suicide.  I have an exceedingly good idea how to end my life successfully, unlike the last three attempts.  So will I survive this crisis point?  Who knows?  I think it is really up to others to take the time to include me in their lives, to make me feel like wanting to live, that there is a purpose to seeing tomorrow. 

My reason for writing this is that I really have no one to talk to.  All my genuine friends are gone, have busy lives of their own, or sadly dead.  No one asks me how I am, what am I doing, would you like to do this or that.  I seem to be like a fire alarm behind glass with instructions to only use in the case of an emergency.  Yet to be honest, even if someone were to genuinely ask me how I am, I’m sure I’d respond with “I’m still here”.