I've been dying in this little house on the end of Lee Street for going on five years. I arrived here with high hopes for a new life with Steph's family.

Things were going great for a while, I fell in love with her grand-daughters and I thought I had a lot to offer the family.

I set the place up very cool, giant TV with surround sound in the living room, big central table, with expensive chairs from our place in Idaho.

And then one day I loaned Steph's grandson Dillan a hundred bucks and got him a job at the tubing company. The family took offense at how I handled his failure to show up the next day, and it was over. Steph didn't have my back, and that was over.

Now I look around me and wonder, what the fuck have I done? I'm too old to be making mistakes like this. In my younger days I could rebound, recover and move on. Now I walk around here like the old man I am while trying to decide what I would want to keep, if anything, if I got the fuck out of Tennessee.

I've had some great adventures away from this house, which I cherish, but I could have had them from anywhere.

There was a point in our leaving Idaho, where I could have gone to any place. I was thinking the warmth of Arizona, but I just couldn't pull it off for some reason. As our garage sale loomed, and Steph was getting ready to be with her grandkids here, she finally said to me You need to make up your mind what you're going to do!

At that point I said, I'm going to Tennessee with you. As I look around this lonely little house, crammed with bullshit that needs to be downsized, I accept the fact that I made a mistake.

I've made a few life choices that were great, like moving to the Seattle area to be with Riley. I've also made some bad ones, and I'm coming to grips with the fact, that this was one of them.

I see people all around me here, that have maintained their life partner, and their home, until they die. God I'm so envious that it never happened for me! But, I take full responsibility for everything...