I checked on him this morning, about twelve hours after leaving him in the shed. He was still lying on his side, right where I'd left him. When I gently nudged him with a leaf, he lifted his head to look at me.

Fuck.

It had been cold overnight. Maybe he was hypothermic. Maybe he was in shock. Maybe he wasn't fatally injured after all.

I couldn't leave him there, so I brought him into my warm office, away from the pets. I put him on paper towels in a small cardboard box, then set that inside a clear Sterilite bin.

I wasn't trying to open a mouse hospital. I just wanted to give him a chance.

And for a little while, it looked like he might have one. He started moving, trying to sit up. Later, he disappeared underneath the paper towels. I thought maybe the warmth was helping.

A few hours later, he was dead.

My first thought wasn't just sadness. It was: What if I killed him?

I'd forgotten to put ventilation holes in the outer bin. The lid wasn't airtight—it was warped and wouldn't latch on one side—and I'd opened it a few times. But what if that wasn't enough? What if he survived my pets and a cold night outside, only to suffocate in the container I'd put him in to save him?

Fucking fuck.

I started looking into how much air a mouse needs. From what I could find, suffocation seemed unlikely. He'd also spent twelve hours barely able to lift his head. There were plenty of reasons to think he was seriously injured.

But then I noticed the droppings in the cardboard box. And I realized he'd managed to climb out of it into the larger container.

He'd climbed.

Was he recovering? Would he have made it if I'd done something differently?

I don't know. And I never will.

That's what hurts. I was trying so hard not to repeat what happened with a bat I once killed because I thought it was beyond saving. I still don't know whether that bat was actually injured.

I keep coming back to something I said last night:

You go out of your way to save a life because maybe someday someone will go out of their way to save yours.

Not because the universe owes you a favor. But because that's the kind of energy I want to put into the world—even if it's only in my own house, and even if nobody else would give a shit about a mouse.

I wasn't afraid to kill him if he was beyond saving. I was afraid to kill him unnecessarily.

And now I'm stuck with the possibility that I made a mistake anyway.

Maybe Koa injured him too badly to survive. Maybe he was recovering, and I did something wrong. I can't prove either one.

All I know is that I tried. And trying doesn't guarantee a good outcome.

I still believe he deserved a chance.

I just wish I knew whether I helped him.

And I really wish the little bastard had made it.

Well, I don't actually know who found it. It could have been the cats. It could have been the dog. All I know is that Koa was standing there guarding this poor little mouse from the cats, wagging her tail, looking at me like she'd just accomplished something incredible.

She was very proud of herself.

The mouse, on the other hand, was having a considerably worse evening.

It was soaking wet, presumably from being carried around in my dog's mouth. I noticed what looked like a small puncture wound on its back, but there wasn't any blood. Just a little red spot. I couldn't tell whether it was seriously injured or simply terrified.

My first thought was that I needed to put it out of its misery.

But then I picked it up.

It let out a couple of tiny squeaks. When I tried to get it off my glove, it wouldn't let go. It was gripping me with all four of its little paws.

And then it looked right at me, wiggling its little nose, whiskers twitching.

What the fuck.

Suddenly, I couldn't do it.

Here's the thing: I don't want mice in my house. I wish my pets had just finished the job. Mice are pests, and living out in rural Michigan, they're a fact of life.

My dad just killed several in their trailer. Nobody around here would think twice about killing a mouse. If I told people I was having some kind of moral crisis over one, I'd probably get made fun of for the rest of my life.

And yet, there I was, holding this tiny creature that clearly wanted to live.

Or at least that's what it felt like.

I couldn't tell whether it was dying. It could move all four legs, it was responsive, and it was holding onto my glove. Maybe it was badly injured internally. Maybe it was just stunned. I had absolutely no idea.

And I couldn't bring myself to make that decision for it.

So I put it in my shed.

Mice come and go from there all the time. It's sheltered, relatively safe, and it can leave whenever it wants.

I figured I'd let nature take its course.

Which might be the most humane inhumane thing I've ever done.

Because now I'm sitting here wondering whether I actually did the right thing. Maybe the mouse is going to recover and live another day. Or maybe it's going to suffer for hours or days before dying.

Maybe I should have killed it. Maybe I should have tried to rehabilitate it.

Instead, I did neither.

And if I'm being critical of myself, maybe I just took the easy way out.

There's some history behind this.

A while back, I killed a bat that I believed was seriously injured. I thought I was doing the compassionate thing by ending its suffering.

Later, I realized it might not have been injured at all.

I might have killed a perfectly healthy animal for absolutely no reason.

That has bothered me ever since.

I don't like killing things. Not even bugs.

I do it, of course. I kill hornets and wasps. I stomp on ants. Occasionally spiders. I recently killed a stink bug, although in my defense, I've probably got a hundred of the little bastards invading my house right now.

I also eat meat.

I'm not pretending to be some enlightened pacifist who refuses to harm another living creature. I'm full of contradictions, just like everyone else.

But killing something has always bothered me.

It feels like it taints my soul a little.

That's probably an overly dramatic way of describing it, but it's the most accurate one I can come up with.

It's not that I believe killing is always wrong. If that mouse were clearly dying and suffering, I'd have killed it without hesitation. I wouldn't enjoy it, but I would do it.

What bothers me is the possibility of taking a life unnecessarily.

Once you've done it, there's no taking it back.

And tonight, looking at that mouse holding onto my glove, I simply couldn't justify it.

There's another element to this evening that probably deserves mentioning.

Earlier, I had a brutal workout followed by a long sauna session. Afterward, I was in this almost euphoric state of mind. One of those moods where everything feels a little more vivid, and I feel unusually connected to the world around me.

It's not that I'm suddenly more compassionate. I've always been compassionate toward animals. But tonight, that compassion felt different.

More immediate. More personal.

Looking at that mouse, I felt like I was that mouse.

Not literally, obviously. I haven't completely lost my mind.

But its vulnerability felt like my own. Here's this tiny creature, scared out of its mind, potentially injured, with absolutely no control over what happens next.

And there's me, this enormous animal holding its entire existence in my hands.

What makes my life inherently more deserving than its?

I'm not suggesting that a mouse and a human have equal moral value. I'm not even sure what I believe about that. But we're both alive. We're both trying to stay that way. And neither of us asked to be here.

It reminded me of something I read years ago in The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran.

"I too am slain."

That passage has always resonated with me.

It's about recognizing that we are part of the same cycle of life as the things we consume and kill. That the distinction between the creature taking a life and the creature losing it isn't nearly as absolute as we like to imagine.

Someday, I'll be the vulnerable one.

Someday, something beyond my control will decide my fate, whether that's another living thing, disease, or simply time.

I think there's value in remembering that.

I'm still not sure I made the right decision tonight.

Maybe putting the mouse in the shed was an act of compassion. Maybe it was cowardice dressed up as compassion. Maybe it was a little of both.

I don't know.

And I think that's the part I struggle with most. I want there to be a correct answer. I want to know whether I'm alleviating suffering or prolonging it.

But sometimes I simply don't have enough information to know.

I guess the best I can do is make a decision I can live with, while accepting that I might be wrong.

I don't want to become someone who's indifferent to taking a life, even when that life belongs to a mouse.

I also don't want to become someone who agonizes over every insect I accidentally step on.

Somewhere between those two extremes is probably where I belong.

Anyway, there's a mouse in my shed tonight.

I have no idea whether it'll survive.

But I hope the little bastard makes it.

And I hope he stays the fuck out of my house.

This year I fell short of a lot, but I also managed to do a lot. During my review this year I noticed that I was drinking too much, I knew this for a while. Beer went from something to enhance my experiences to a requisite for my experiences. I talked to a friend and we decided to chill on drinking for a while. I noticed many things during my sober month of September. I found I didn't get enjoyment from everyday things, small things, things I loved. Everything felt flat. I started CrossFit again, I picked up playing Valheim with friends and I started grocery shopping instead of eating out. Eventually, I started feeling rewards for doing these things, but not until after I started doing them for a few weeks. My desire to drink dissipated, I was ecstatic.

What I wasn't prepared for was my mind's response when I hit a hurdle. I thought I could cope with it, I didn't think I'd need alcohol to numb my response. I was wrong. I ruminated and obsessed over things that I really had no reason to. A minor social interaction turns into a multi-hour retrospective.

I chose to drink again, responsibly, during a golf outing October 4th. It was fine, I found I didn't like drinking, I didn't want to, I didn't need it. Then as the days went by, I figured why not have a beer or two or three or seven after work. And within two weeks, I was right back to where I started.

This project is my response to that pattern. I'm going to ramble and spam nonsense here until I figure out what I want to do.