The Freakin’ Weekend

The Gonzo Journals

May 22nd, 2023

Recovery is important no matter the ailment. I’ve been fortunate enough not to have any physical illnesses lately – although I did have COVID three damn times and some of those symptoms refuse to go away – but my mental health took quite a blow about a month ago.

Some would say that it was only a job, and I should get over it and move on. To those people, I say “thank you for your concern, but not everyone’s brain works the same”. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. This wasn’t a job. It was a childhood promise come to life. There’s a difference.

I take a lot of pride in honoring the wishes of my inner child and have checked off several bucket list promises over the years. You, however, may be one of those people who don’t give a damn about honoring such commitments and tell your former self to screw off on a regular basis. Yes, yes, we all had those parents or grandparents who constantly reminded us that we needed to grow up. That’s fine. Who said we had to forget, though? That decision is left entirely up to us.

So, here it is, a Monday one month after the fact, and I’m still fielding comments about losing my “fun” job for the simple reason I’m a horror author. A large part of me wants this scenario to just go away, but an even larger part of me wants people to never forget. Artists create, yet corporate America wants to tell us what is acceptable and what is not. They’re encouraging AI to fade us all out and soon, there will be no more creative humans left on the planet. Just AI and a conformist workforce. For reference, check out the backstory of the Terminator or Matrix movie series. To be even more specific, check out an animated anthology titled The Animatrix, which explains how everything went down in the Matrix universe. It’s coming, folks. At least, I hope it is. I’m bored with the current course of humanity. Give us an enemy to unite against.

This was the first weekend since the ordeal when I was allowed to take a deep breath and exhale the negativity. I don’t even think I left the house. I experimented with several legal CBD options, played lots of videogames, listened to music, ate amazing food, and watched a few movies. My lovely wife was beside me the whole time. We talked, we snuggled, and we caught up as a couple. I couldn’t have written the plan for a better weekend.

Downtime is important. Our day to day lives in 2023 have no brakes. When you stack work onto family, social media, and the pit of despair we like to call ‘the news’, I’m surprised anyone at all can take a moment to remember who they are as a person or two people remembering they’re a loving couple. The modern world is a cesspool of billions of individuals suddenly asking for you to ‘look at them’ in unison, and it’s a loud, indecipherable mess. A curse upon your ears, like a middle school lunchroom moments before one of the cafeteria monitors tells everyone to ‘shut the fuck up’. I know you know what I’m talking about. The same thing happens in small Texas town Mexican restaurants on Friday nights before high school football games. You can’t even enjoy your goddamn enchiladas before getting a headache from all the noise. Example: Ta’Molly’s on Interstate 30 in Greenville, Texas on a football Friday night. Intolerable.

Even though I feel kind of lazy right now and have a bit of a cloudy brain from nonstop “special” gummies, I needed a ‘nothing’ weekend. A chance for my 49-year-old self to pretend he is still ten with his whole life ahead of him. Then again, that’s kind of what I was doing while working for the Six Flags and Texas Railroad before I was wrongfully terminated over stupid shit.

Holy crap. I’ll never be able to get away from this, will I? Everything flows full circle back to corporate ignorance. Maybe I should see a professional about this? Damn, I miss alcohol. An entire year of forcing myself to ‘feel’ things makes me want to break down and cry.

Peace. Please. I need it badly.