It’s done. It’s over.

No more pain. No more suffering.

The only suffering left is for those who are close to him. His wife and children and grandchild.

He’s gone and there wasn’t much anyone can do.

He’s gone.

I hope that he passed with his loved ones. I hope that he was comfortable.

He was loved.

* * *

I haven’t heard of specific dates but there are rumors of it happening when I’m away at business. I wouldn’t be able to make it, as much as I know that I should and want to. I just can’t.

* * *

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCponfeWNOI&quot;Wish I Was There

Lost and trying to figure things out.

I watched the movie last night. It was a backers exclusive from Kickstarter.

It wasn’t good. I can honestly say that. It had potential but things just didn’t come together as I wanted them to. It just didn’t work. It wasn’t horrible.

Overall, it was just okay.

There were some touching moments and touching scenes, but I just…don’t know. It just didn’t work.

Was I disappointed that I backed the movie, no. I’m not, like I wasn’t disappointed or regretful in backing Veronica Mars either.

I can understand why Braff went the Kickstarter route. It was definitely a passion project for him.

I wish him the best on this project.

* * *

The movie hits a little close to home with me, and given what just happened with my uncle and his family, it was definitely a touchy area.

I cried. Tears fell.

Movies with characters with daddy issues, especially dying fathers, affect me that way.

I’m sure if my cousins watched this movie, they’ll feel the same, since Braff’s character had to watch his father die from cancer.

Too close.

Too much.

I can understand where Braff is coming from, in terms of his mindset, in terms of why he’s making his movie.

He made Garden State as his therapy for the dreaded Quarter-Life-Crisis, and this is for what one goes through when he’s in his thirties.

I can see what he’s doing, for in a way, I am going through what he’s going through.

This movie in a way is about losing that boyhood dream, knowing exactly what you want to do, but tweaking it just a little bit. Just grow up and be responsible.

Just be responsible.

Man up.

It just takes him losing his father and being a father himself, never wanting to be the type of father that his own was, that he realizes that all his father wanted for him to do was to be the best he can be. Be responsible. Be a man.

He was proud, in the end, on his deathbed, confessing words that he could have never said on his good days.

It’s funny how that is the case in real life. It isn’t until the end we put away our pride and in our humility we realize what is important.

Family.

Posterity.

Love.

That’s all that is important.

We look out for family.

Who else is there to love us, if not for family?

* * *

Proud.

His father was proud. He heard his deathbed confession. He was really proud of both of his sons.

One of the many things that I struggle with on most days is whether or not my father was proud.

I don’t know.

I never heard him say it. He just didn’t know that he didn’t have much time left.

He left me, us, too soon.

I miss him.

And I will never know.

All I can do is believe that he did. He was proud of me.

I have to believe that I heard it in his voice as he called me weekly. I have to believe that I saw it in his face as he said goodbye to me on the last day I saw him alive.

I just have to believe.

Most days I struggle with it.

I struggle to believe.

But that is a fault of my wiring. It’s a fatal flaw of my brain. It’s one of my hamartia.

I just can’t believe it until I experience it. My analytical mind is based too much of science and experience. Hypotheticals are just untested hypotheses that needs to be tested and tested until it can become a theory.

Unfortunately, with this life of mine, with this luck that I was given, with a father who had passed way too soon, this hypothetical hypothesis of my soul would never be tested.

There is no test.

I guess ultimately in the end, I have a crisis of faith.

It’s not a spiritual crisis of finding God or an all knowing being.

No, it’s just a faith of believing that my dear father was proud of me. That he loved me.

The only thing I can do is work on my faith and believe in it.

I have help. I just need to do the work.

Faith.

Believe.

He was proud of me.

Believe in that.

* * *

Ultimately in the end of the film, with the loss of his father, knowing that he was proud of him, a catharsis came over him and an opportunity to do what he’s passionate about and be paid to do it. It falls on his lap.

Sometimes life just happens that way. After you hit your lowest, you see clearer and things just fall for you.

He becomes the responsible family man, the father that he was meant to be. He becomes a breadwinner, providing for his family, and a father who teaches his kids important skills.

Is that what we ultimately end up doing? Doing a job and being a part of something that is bound by blood? Is that the ultimate ultimate that is life?

In a way, it is what I want.

Family.

Children of my own.

But other than that, what else is it that I want? What is my passion and am I doing whatever I can to pursue it?

I don’t know.

* * *

What do I want?

I know for sure that I am not lost. I’ve written how this Mid-Life-Crisis of mine doesn’t feel anything like the Quarter-Life-Crisis that I gone through in my early twenties.

But in a way, it is ultimately about what I want. What it is that I want out of life? What I want to do and ultimately what kind of man that I want to become?

Let’s get all of the obvious that I want out of the way.

I do love my life as how it is right now, how it stands right now.

Many people might not see that, but I do.

I love my freedom. I’m not lonely, or do I ever get lonely, ’cause for the most part, I am hardly ever alone.

But what do I want?

I want a family. I want kids.

I would love to have kids of my own. I would love to have the opportunity to have the challenge that is being a father.

I would love that.

I would love to fall in love. Who doesn’t right?

But I know for sure I am not willing to compromise my independence, my freedom, and my life right now for someone who I don’t feel a connection for.

I know for sure that if I don’t end up with someone like that and be alone till my last breath, I know that I would definitely be okay with it.

I want to create.

I want to create. Whether it is music (which I have no experience in), films, writing, photography, joy, food; no matter what it is, I want to create.

I don’t care if I’m successful in the traditional sense of that word, as long as I keep doing it, I think I’ll be happy. I don’t need to make money from it. None at all. As long as I do it, I think that matters more to me than anything else.

I want to write.

I want to write more than screenplays. I want to write more than these words into this empty void. I want to write a novel. I want to write a novella. I want to write short stories.

Prose.

I want to write prose.

I want to tell stories with my words and my thoughts.

I want to make people cry and feel pain with my words. I want to make people laugh and shed tears of joy with my thoughts.

Stories.

It’ll be a slow process as I work on it. A very slow process of consuming words from other people and type words of my own.

Will I have the patience and stamina for it?

I don’t know.

All I do know is that I want it. I’m passionate about it.

It’s my drug of choice and I would love to have my words be another’s heroin and feed their addiction.

Words.

They are powerful, if you allow them to be.

* * *

Life is about collecting stories.

Stories from your experience and stories from others.

Make them yours and tell them to the world.

Share the wealth of experiences so it can help others who are going through dark pains that you’ve gone through and survived.

Give them hope. Be the faith that they need to carry them through that tunnel to that glimmer of hope that we all need to just survive and live again.

We all have joys.

We all have pains.

Miseries and adventures.

Be charitable and share them.

Who knows, maybe you’ll save someone’s life in the end.

Isn’t that worth it?

Be someone’s hero.