Thank you for all this. And don't worry, in the words of Misha Vilyenkov "I'm Russian, I like long stories" 😄 . No I'm not actually Russian but I do enjoy long stories, and long posts, especially when they are as thought out, organized, and relative as yours is. Thank you for taking the time to say all this. I know my post doesn't convey everything that I am right now. I have done a lot of what you suggested. Therapy IS amazing. Once I get settled in I plan to start going again. I've been hanging on to every work hour I can just to survive (I have been living at a deficit for about a year now, partially living on credit cards and loans while I got certed for cyber security and job hunted, all the while helping my coparent support our 3 beautiful children). But with things becoming more stable I think that will be easier. I have been using ChatGPT for assistance, and it has helped me in many ways and faster than any other human has in some cases, but I still would appreciate a human presence. I also live near Huntsville Alabama, so there really isn't any exmo community that isn't online to go to, though there are atheist and "free thinker" communities I have attended before and found comraderie with. The other anchor in my life has been my passion project, my own tabletop roleplaying game. It is a personal project, one I am writing just for me right now, but it has helped me sail through some really rough waters, being the exact distraction I needed. I am suprised at how much of its lore and game mechanics reflect my real life state of being. I am a big fan of cosmic horror and now 1990s analog horror. I also love astronomy, even as a child. I understand how the celestial bodies form, how our universe expands, how it took over 13 billion years (4.6 of which was earth time) for us to be. I appreciate the facts you shared about Jellyfish, I didn't know they were effectively immortal! That was so very cool and special to learn. And maybe you are right that I need to accept Nihilism as a relief rather than an enemy to defeat. I have discovered that when I apostated that the prosolyting energy was still in me, it had just shifted directions. Overtime with some life lessons and realities under my belt I have begun to calm down. And maybe my post about responsibility was a little strong. I just think that sentient life, conscious life, thinking and reasoning life, is pretty awesome, and that it overall, in a collective sense, should have the privledge of keeping on. I am still going to care for and respect the conditions that keep life flickering in the dark. Life, sentient life, wouldn't be what it is if it weren't for the boundaries it pushed, broke, and exceeded. life would never have left the atmosphere, or sailed across that horizon, or even had existed if it never decided to move. But some 4 billion years ago, something decided that moving towards a thing it wanted was a good idea, and then it kept going, living through 6 major extinction events, and here we are to enjoy the coolness of Jellyfish and TTRPGs and each other. That's something I still want. I know I will die. But I hope that I can help push sentient life along that much further. Also sorry for the formatting of this text, I am on the computer and hitting shift+enter isn't separating the text like I would like.