It’s been a few weeks since I wrote one of these. I’m not sure if it was because I haven't had anything to say or because I have too much. I’m also not sure which would be better.

I try to write this column when all is going well. I like to write about cute anecdotes or insightful thoughts that have crossed my mind. Both of those things have been rarer lately. My health, which I had thought was getting better, seems to have only been caught in a holding pattern. It had been almost two months since I had a seizure, or at least one big enough to count. It had been a relief that my medications were finally working, and things had been looking up.

That’s not to say that they are looking down now, but the sailing hasn’t been going as smoothly as I’d hoped. As I focused on the slowly clearing skies behind me I failed to miss the gathering clouds ahead. I’m not one to complain on behalf of myself. Like the stereotypical male, I often hate talking about my feelings. Of course, that may be one of the only ways I’m a stereotypical man.

I mean I ask for directions just fine. I have no problem letting a woman hold the door from me. I shy away from physical confrontation. I use humor to avoid talking about my emotions… Oh, yup, there I go again.

I’m scared. That may be a little intense for what is normally a light hearted column about my boyfriend annoying me or my parents dog sneaking under my bed and refusing to get out, but I know I can’t be the only one.

My health aside, the cost of living is rising across the country. Apartments cost more. Food costs more. The cost of not being buried in the ground is steadily rising, but no one with any say seems to get just how bad it is. Even if seizures hadn’t taken my license from me, my car from me or the highest paying job I’ve ever had, I’m not sure I could live comfortably.

I mean, I went back to college for a reason. My whole life people always told me that if I got a college degree I could have one of those jobs that pay for a life, a family, a vacation or two a year. That wasn’t exactly true. I mean at this point, I have two degrees, and it doesn’t seem to be helping.

I feel so defeatist. That was never like me. I have had a steady job since I was 16 years old. The longest I spent out of work was my time in a hospital bed recovering from two broken legs. Yet, for the first time in 20 years, I feel like no amount of effort can help.

My neurologist says I’m depressed, and, very likely, I’m experiencing this depression as a cause of my medication. She suggested I apply for disability. How could I?

All I know is work. I’ve taken less than 2 months off of work in 20 years, if you don’t include medical leave that is. Should I be proud of that?

20 years of hard work and if something bad happened tomorrow I’d be living on the streets. Is this the American dream my parents talked about? Is this what my father, grandfather and all the people in the generation above me thought they were voting for? Once upon a time a single person working 40 hours a week at a minimum wage job was all you needed to buy a home and save for your children’s futures.

I loved this country for my entire youth, but for the last few years I’ve been thinking about moving away. Of course, thinking is all I can do since the actual process of moving isn’t something I can imagine affording in the next decade. I have to believe that there is somewhere better.

Cranston Councilman Richard Campopiano just returned from Itri, Italy. He told me that there was a huge concert to accompany their Saint Mary’s Feast. He said that he didn’t see a single police officer, problem of violence or the general stupidity that would have warranted their presence here in America.

When did America stop being a place where we all behaved with at least some amount of dignity?

It’s confusing how in one moment I can be editing a story about a person selflessly donating their time, energy and money to helping others, and in the next moment I can be editing a story of corruption, scandal and general bad behavior by people we’re supposed to trust.

I was raised to be a decent person. I don’t find it easy to believe that others aren’t. My parents were good, but is it so easily true that the majority aren’t? I used to think that people did bad things because of tough times. Is there a whole world of selfish behavior out there that’s learned not from desperation but as the way it should be?

I’m realizing more and more I’m too old for the generation I’m supposed to be a part of, while I’m also too young to reap the benefits of having been in the generation before mine. I know I’m not alone in that. I hear the despondent voice of others like me every day. I hear it online, in social media, and in the grumpy voices of people in coffee shops buying $6 coffees while remembering how they were $3 just a few years ago.

When I was a child I remember there being a running joke in cartoons and media that only old people said stuff like that. I’m not even 40 yet, and I know people much younger than me saying how things used to be better. At least it’s not just me feeling lost.

Despite all of this I will keep putting one foot before the other. It is what I’ve always done. I don’t know another option. Let’s just hope the ground gets firmer as we go.