About an hour and a half ago I heard a siren that sounded like a fire truck. I looked out the window and saw a big plume of smoke in the sky which didn't look too far away. I can't remember the last time I saw that. Hastily I went into the living room and through the front door. I tried to get a better look, but it was only more obstructed by the neighbors houses on the other side of the street.

At first, I thought it was coming from the local school building. It's right down the road, in sight from our place. The former owner of this house was a school teacher. I tried to see if there were people evacuating the building, but it all seemed normal from what I could tell; although it was a bit difficult to see. The smoke was coming from the north and I thought that if it wasn't coming from the school, it must have been very close on the other side.

Just a matter of minutes ago I went on the local news website and saw a report of a barn fire. The time-stamp was 9:13 AM, right about the time I saw it, if that's what it was. The information was very limited, but it said the fire happened south of a town which just so happens to be north of where we live. What's more is that the road where it occurred is the road where my dad's childhood home is located, and they had a barn in the backyard. It's a rural area and there's a lot of farms around there, but it's really got my attention today. My grandmother moved out of there a few years ago and the place has since been abandoned, it's a very old and dilapidated house, and the barn is in no better shape. I've been in it before, my grandparents weren't farmers, so they basically just used it like a warehouse, it was just cluttered full of old random belongings.

I don't know. We have a man in the family who lives next door to that place, rather loosely related, I think he's my dad's cousin or something like that. I suppose we'll hear something from him pretty soon if that barn went up in flames.

Today I finally explained everything to J. I found a way to do it without coming off as "you're no longer a friend to me and you never will be again." I got things back in order and it's quite a weight off my shoulders, but it still doesn't feel like the same friendship and I doubt it ever will. But it's better than nothing. There's no one else, no one but a family I went cold on a long, long time ago.

Talking about Christmas would take me back to that 2016 $#%^ too much, I'm not going back there. My posts from last year. Nope.

My brother is going into the Marine Corps. Originally he was bound for the fire department, but changed his mind even though he excelled in training. Initially, he was meant to leave for basic 3 days ago. It's been postponed to March. I'm discontented because I'm looking forward to it. He'll be gone for months, and without him around, I'll get tons of the alone time that I'm just plain insatiable for. But now I have to wait another entire season. He started having some issues with leg pain a few weeks back, I believe that to be the reason.

But, my oh my, what am I to do? I'm not the least bit thrilled to admit it, but I'm about to turn 21 and I haven't even applied for a job once. There's nothing up at a higher tier in my mind, I'm not satisfied and I'm not living this way forever, but ######6 hell, I've yet to break out of recurring bouts of catastrophic depression. You know what, I'm going in the direction of another broken record, tail-chasing 2016 post, I'd better stop now.

I still haven't gotten over it. You can't give someone such a valuable gift that can't be matched by anything else in the world, then take it away and expect them to be fine with it. But, that sounds like an accusation. Why did we ever get that close, anyway? After all, I'd known for months in advance that this was likely to happen, and I didn't even expect myself to take it roughly. For the last few weeks, I've had no incentive to message J at all. Occasionally I get this sense of ethical obligation to break the silence, but I keep changing my mind every time, and in part, it's because I doubt how much she actually cares. Am I really closing off someone who genuinely cares about me just because I feel disconnected, or has she taken to exaggerating her concern just so I don't feel upset that she doesn't really care about me that much anymore?

This is a badly written paragraph, my writing fluency is much at the mercy of my mood and as the title implies, I'm not well and I'm just too burnt out to give a damn anyway.

A few days ago, J said, verbatim, "I need to tell you something but I'm very scared to tell you." I asked what it was, of course. She said she has a boyfriend now, and went into a little paragraph involving "it doesn't change our friendship" and "I'm still here for you no matter what." I know she means it, she's one of the last people on this planet who would ever say that as a hollow statement. But it makes me feel more unneeded.

I know it isn't justified. There's no wrongdoing going on. But she's the only soul in the world who I care about and cares about me in return, not just one or the other, and when she has someone new to love, it undeniably signifies that I become less important.

Come to think of it, I think I still have yet to explain the story about J in it's entirety. Or, have I? Well, if I'm repeating it, so be it, I'm in the mood to write. It started out nearly a year ago (why do I find myself saying "nearly a year ago" so much?), when I registered for a forum site similar to PF in November of last year. I didn't think I'd be a regular there for very long. But on the first day of December, I got a PM from some other user regarding one of my posts. She said she related well to my social isolation. I replied and expressed my gratitude, but I didn't expect what followed. She sent a couple more PM's through the next few days, and I did reply to them, but I was still too awkward about composing messages to her.

It wasn't long before that barrier broke. We became two of a kind. By January, it had become practically blissful. We would PM each other just about every day, sometimes around a dozen times in a row, staying up late just to talk to each other. Among the things I learned about her was that she had a breakup in the summer of that year, but, when we started messaging each other all the time, she got over him in a matter of a month or something like that, and, umm..... how do I put this? We started to talk like we were significant others. But she's from Europe, so it's not as though we can visit each other. In the late spring/early summer of this year, we started to communicate via Facebook. It's much quicker than exchanging PM's several times in a row, and we trusted each other with some of our personal information by then.

Now, in the few more months that it's been, that leads to right now. I feel like a barrier is forming between us once more, and it's a gutwrenching feeling of distance. She deserves it 100%, to love someone who can actually be there in her presence, and I'm not gonna make any attempt to intervene, but now I'm just reflecting on the past: .... nevermind, I'm done.

We're pretty much fully settled in the new house now. It's not quite all said and done, there's still a bunch of stuff (mostly junk) scattered around at the old place, including the garage and the shed, and once we've got all that out of the way, there's a lot of cleaning to be done before the realtor will come in to take pictures and put it up on the market. But we've got everything we need.

It was a big pain in the ass. We had just the three of us: my dad, my brother, and myself, and my dad is having back problems so he couldn't do a lot of heavy lifting, which left my brother and I to do a ton of very exhausting work carrying heavy furniture and boxes around. Yesterday and today, we've done most of it. I still have some soreness in my arms, shoulders and legs. We rented a 17 foot U-Haul truck to carry stuff. The thing was alright, but I'm glad I didn't have to drive it. It would lurch forward every time it downshifted, the middle seat was uncomfortable, the passenger seat belt couldn't be adjusted because the button was broken off, so it was stuck at a level too low for me to get it over my shoulder without leaning to the side, but it got the job done. And it had good AC, which we really needed because it's been very hot, there's nothing like 90 degree weather (32 Celsius) for exhausting physical exertion.

Earlier today we got the TV and internet working, so this is my first time posting on here while situated in a room that's my own. This place, despite being relatively new (I think 1987 was the year), has no air conditioning and only baseboard heating. But my dad says he can have central AC installed, we'll just have to fork out a couple thousand dollars for it.

I don't know why, but I'm already becoming sentimental about the old place. I used to tell myself "I hate this house" all the time, and I've posted about that on here more than once. I only even lived there as permanent residence for about 2 years. But it seems that there's some kind of intrinsic value every home has, just in the fact that it's home. I almost feel as though I've been a jerk to someone for a long time and I'm becoming remorseful now that we're going separate ways. It's one of those things that never surfaces until you begin to look back on it as a bygone memory.