Thank you [View all]

I was coming back to write a formal goodbye letter to DU because intuitively, it felt right but I realized that I will be writing that offline because I've had too many ch ch changes and epiphanies in the last 4 months and I want it to reflect how much this place meant to me.

But since I was here, I decided to poke around a bit. Had way more laughs than I expected and goodness knows, those have been few and far between since Oct 7th. But, truth be told, those laughs were laughing at rather than laughing with and that's no good. I had no doubt I wouldn't be coming back but seeing all of this, yeah, I'll drop off my "Goodbye and thanks for all the fish." but that will be it.

There was someone who was talking about not being able to judge this or that (that would be because old journalism is carrying water for the usual subjects). There is new journalism now and if you want to know what is actually happening, often in the very minute it is happening, I would recommend Telegram (Tiktok, too, but they deal with more censorship. Telegram has none). Take it or leave it. It's my gift, paying it forward because so many people helped me 20 years ago when I knew so little and wanted to know so much.

I promised a friend back in mid October that I would watch and I wouldn't turn away. The things I have seen are things no human should see and definitely no human should experience. As awful as it has been, I think the shattering of my soul left it open to see a completely different path. I sounds flipping insane to say that this experience has helped me find hope that I lost somewhere along the way. I'm not going to try to explain it.

I did finally get the clarity I was so desperately searching for after 9/11. It's okay that it took this long. Better late than never.

We are living in interesting times, a curse and a blessing to each in their own way. Okay, then. Bye.