Why "haunted"?

A couple of factors have kept me from posting regularly here, both of them, quite unfortunately, beyond my control.

My mother was recently diagnosed with lung cancer and is about to begin radiation therapy for the disease. It's a terribly upsetting, trying time for my family and it is very difficult to concentrate on anything but her battle at this point. Everything else tends to seem very trivial, or at the very least, non-essential. My mom and I have always been very close and I know that she wants me to think of things other than her illness and continue on with my life as much as possible, but it is so difficult. Besides the day to day medical concerns, you just can't help but think about your life, your decisions, etc. The proper words are failing me, but suffice it to say that my energies are focused totally on her progress and hopeful recovery as she moves through this process. I will post when I can, depending of course on whether I have something interesting to say. But Mom comes first.

Also my computer has been acting up of late. The server is the most likely culprit. It seems glacially slow, rendering even the most simple tasks (i.e. checking e-mail) time consuming and frustrating. Yet I plug away, knowing that posting regularly will be difficult.

I wanted to talk a little about the title of my blog, "haunted". I don't know if most people bother to do so, but I thought an explanation might be in order. Why "haunted"? The simplest answer is "because I AM haunted."

I am haunted by indecision and inaction. I am haunted by words left unspoken, tasks started but never finished, by wasted time and energy. I am haunted by people who are gone but cannot (and should not) be forgotten. I am haunted by a dozen colors of guilt. I am haunted by nostalgia, by the shame that comes with thinking that things always seemed better in the past. I am haunted by faces I yearn to see and can't and those I don't wish to see and must. I am haunted by my father's death, by the reverberations of that event that are with me always. I am haunted by the poor health of my mother, as decent a human being that ever was, who deserves so much more. I am haunted by the lost sense of purpose of our country and the world in general. I am haunted fear, so much fear; of the future, of the yawning unknown that lies before me, of failure and of success.

But mostly, I am haunted by myself.

Tomorrow, I want to post something fun. I hope someone out there is listening. If you are, let me know. If you aren't, then I have to work harder to create something worth listening to.

Michael