This is modern life:

I log into my PC with the intent of writing. It is seven twenty in the morning on a Friday. I know I only have forty minutes to perform the following tasks: Make coffee. Gather and take the trash out. Loosen my post operative shoulder with 10 minutes of terrible pulley exercises. Write.

I log in to write. I need to write and have been ignoring it. The transfer failed. I've been sick. I have been holding in emotions and observations all week. I hide them in my smoking, in my work, I work and smoke and do physical therapy and take care of the dog until I am exhausted and have no energy left.

But somewhere between logging into the blog to do a journal entry and actually writing, I glimpse my email. My tractive subscription is up and I will get auto charged $110 if I don't cancel it. That will take ten minutes. I can't do it now so I log into chatgpt, which manages my daily task list now, and add tasks. I also add tasks to make sure Penny's new shows are downloading. Another task to reschedule a work meeting that I can't attend due to PT. Another task to actually restring my guitar, which sounds horrifically unexciting and often takes a full hour for me to break in the strings and get the final tuning right. And some Amica paperwork. And pay a town water bill.

After adding tasks to the list and clearing everything out, I have no time. I have to do my PT. I write the above for five minutes.

I add another task to the list:

Journal for half an hour later today. Make the goddamned time.

Despite writing it, I'm not sure I will.

But if I do, here's the prompt:

I have basically hated my life since I got the shoulder surgery, straight through, August 12 through October 16. Despised. There's been so little relief from the suffering that it's making me depressed.

I smoked my last cigarette today. I have decided to make this a recovery blog until I've recovered. The last couple of months I went back to smoking and I am also irregularly vaping marijuana and numbing myself to the reality of my miserable life but I have remembered something.

Energy is the answer. Pure and good energy, the kind that comes from health.

My shoulder, the one recovering from surgery, is now good enough to do any activity I want. I need to get healthy. There are no longer any blockers, so to speak. After the surgery, the initial weeks were horrible, it was an effort to get much activity at all. And after I regained basic mobility I was still advised to not run or even use the elliptical machine.

But that's all changed now. My physical therapist, Juan, told me today I could try just about anything I want. I even prompted "overhead bar hang?" knowing this is a high energy move. And he said yes. You can try that a little.

So I want to have a real workout tomorrow. I'll also try to mow the lawn in the front. I have to be unafraid to leave Penny alone, either. I know she likes the company but I want to do the things I want to do.

When I have energy, and I'm healthy, the idea of learning something new or even doing a chore doesn't hurt so much, and then I have more interest and energy to do other things. I need to go back to minimum 20 minute cardio sessions. I will be doing less PT moving forward and more just daily life things. I can slow down the range of motion work and do it more irregularly, then just launch right into a weight routine. I have to build the base of my health up again instead of letting things get me down.

If nothing else it is something to focus on.

I am recovering from smoking in all its many forms.

And recovering from working way too hard in 2025 and most of 2026.

I am recovering my hobbies and myself because if I do not, then I don't know who I am anymore.