Need to hurry...

I want to get as much written down as I can before I completely lose these memories, these pieces of who I was and who I am.

Problem is.. I need to find things that will trigger those memories so I can remember that I remember them. Yes, I'm aware of how that sounds rather paradoxical. The memories are still there, they're just increasingly locked behind gates that I can't open without external stimulus.

This is really weird, honestly. This doesn't fit any normal definition of Parkinson's, normal dementia, Alzheimer's, or any other brain disorder that I can find. Some bits and pieces fit all of those, but not completely. The loss of physical coordination definitely fits into those, but still none are really all that close of a match.

I won't be posting anything about these posts on Mastodon, elsewhere, until I'm at the very edge. I don't want people worrying about what they can't change. I'll fight this last battle alone as long as physically possible. Just.. dump what I can remember on the world; maybe it's not very useful to most, but maybe a historian somewhere might pick up something interesting from these memories. I'm sure someone will eventually archive these on Archive.org; maybe even Jason Scott if he's bored enough to look this stuff over at some point.

I don't know how much time I have left, but I do know I need to hurry.

Once got to see stadium-class lighting explode

Was just reminded of a lightning strike I saw once back in 1989 or 1990. Would have had to have been late summer since being out late at night wouldn't have been allowed during school season, and it would have definitely been before 1991 by maybe one or two years at most since we ended up moving into said friend's home in July 1991 after he moved away. The late summer comes from the weather patterns of where we lived; July to September were dangerous months with high heat, sudden flash flooding, and a lot of lightning storms.

My father and I were taking a family friend home from his workplace a bit after 10pm, maybe 10:15pm to 10:30pm at the latest. Lightning hit a baseball field approximately two miles east of our position. To be more specific, it hit the lighting for the field.

We only realized the lightning had actually hit the lights when said lights quickly grew to be as bright as noon. This took maybe about five or six seconds from recollection. When I say as bright as noon, I mean it-- while it was after 10:00pm at the time, visibility was extremely good for the entire area for that few seconds.

A few seconds before the entire set of lights all exploded in a shower of sparks that were plainly visible from our location, leaving the entire area pitch-black once again.

Don't think I've seen a direct hit like that before or since. It was one of those one-in-a-million random chances that you happened to be in the right place at the right time to see it.

What brought all this to mind is a local news report that that baseball field is one of two in the area that just got a dark-sky designation by rennovating their lighting to remove significant light pollution.

Final Stages of Progression

I've still got a draft for the second MS-DOS article that I need to work on a bit more, but I'd like to just touch on an aside topic for a brief moment. Medical-wise, I recently went through minor ear surgery. I'm expected to go back in on Wednesday to check up on that. I don't expect any major surprises on that front. The real problem is the neurological side.

The writing (well, and socializing, and just.. everything in general) is getting increasingly difficult; I'm losing more of myself on a weekly basis right now. I'm routinely-- as in daily-- finding myself looking at tasks and asking myself, "Why did I skip this part? Oh, wait, no, I didn't. I just forgot I did that just two minutes ago. Literally two minutes and it's already out of my brain."

It definitely feels like I'm at the end of my rope.

Now this next part, I know this is going to piss a few people off, but there's no avoiding it at this point.

I'm fully aware that physiologically I don't deal with stress well at all. The higher my stress level, the more I tend to say things I shouldn't. The people around me don't deserve this, especially with my stress level only increasing from here. I mean, come on, let's be realistic-- how exactly am I not going to stress out right now? How exactly am I going to not be in a full-on panic state?! As such, I've tagged my Discord account for deletion and started to close myself off from the world as much as possible. This is a no-going-back kind of decision; no matter what anyone says, I'm setting myself up for the end of the road.

My initial guess was two years, but at the current rate of decay I'm not sure I'm going to hold out for another year. The decay is extremely visible to ME, and I'm the one with the loss! I should be having a difficult time sensing this. The fact that it's that visible is just a testament as to how much worse things are getting in a hurry.

I'll look into getting a will set up next month. That's going to be critical to avoid everything going straight to hell.

I will.. TRY.. to force myself to get some writing done while I'm still capable of it. Some of it will just be various memories of mine; nothing particularly special in there, just talking about how the world was back when I was a kid. Some of it wil be technical, like the MS-DOS articles. I don't know, some of it may just end up being me talking about things I enjoy. I promised someone a "Beginner's Guide to Castlevania" so I should probably take a bit of time to write on that subject too while I still can.

I'm hoping nobody will notice this post until after the 14 day deletion period is over.. I really don't want to have to argue over what I'm doing; I know this is the right thing to do now. I won't be trying to get a replacement computer, repair what I have, or anything. I'm just going to disappear as quietly as possible with these posts as my final words to the world at large.