I think I'm starting to become more aware of how hurt I feel, and I don't like it.
It seems I'm hurt by a lot of things.
It seems that I'm pretty sensitive, and maybe I don't let people see that very often.
I dunno. Maybe I do.
I'd like to face my hurt, because I feel like that's how it goes away.
The more I close my eyes to it, the more it sticks around. Or so it seems.
I had to go onto the Facebook today to check on the power outage at my house. I had left my wife and son in the dark as I traveled to work this morning at 5:45, and I wanted to see if they had power. And the electric company is updating its status on Facebook, rather than its own website. Which is stupid. But not the point.
Jumping on Facebook, I learned that my house was still in the dark.
I also learned that a friend of mine is coming to town soon and wants to catch up.
Just reading that she wanted to catch up sent me into a mild anxiety attack.
Why??
Why the fuck is it so difficult for me to even think about catching up with an old friend that even the thought makes me want to run away?
And she's wanted to catch up for many years.
As has her sister.
And her folks.
And I have always run away from all of them.
Why?
So today, I didn't run away from thinking about it.
And the best answer I came up with is that I feel like I failed. At just about everything.
The one thing I didn't fail at, my marriage, I don't feel is interesting to anyone but me.
They don't get it, I think to myself. They don't understand love, they don't want to hear about True Love, for sure. They're all divorced and unhappy and don't care about me and my marriage and how it's really the only thing that keeps me going.
And that last part kinda stuck with me.
My marriage is the only thing really keeping me going.
I don't think that's healthy.
I feel like it's more healthy for me to have many things going for me, not just one.
But it's seriously difficult for me to think of anything more than just that one thing that is good in my life.
I haven't made kids, I haven't been able to protect my wife's kids or my wife from harm and considerable trauma, I haven't achieved financial wealth, I haven't achieved fame, I have become a Has Been Who Never Was in entertainment, blah blah blah.
What do I do?
I stay at home and hold my wife's hand.
And we talk about how this is healthy for us right now, as it is allowing us to heal from the years of ordeal.
So when I catch up with people, what do I say?
"I like holding my wife's hand for hours at a time because we were both traumatized for 8 solid years, her kids were caught in the middle of a traumatic war and sustained scars from the years of battle, I have an enormous mental issue compounded by this trauma, and I want to talk about it as much as cancer patients enjoy talking about their cancer. How are you doing?" At that point, I'm actively looking to escape questions or the focus of conversation.
This is uncomfortable for me.
I'll bet it would be uncomfortable for anyone else, too.
Especially people who have supported me as much as my old friend, or my old friend's sister, or my old friend's family. I often have tried to model my home life after how I felt when I went to their home, always welcome and no pretense or ceremony.
And I hate thinking of myself as a failure.
But I really hate having to tell people that I think of myself as a failure.
I'm not pretty like Ryan Reynolds (or anyone else).
Aesthetically and health wise, I fail.
I'm not smart like Stephen Hawking (or anyone else).
I don't have a doctorate, like 3/4 of my parents.
I don't even have a master's degree like 4/4 of my parents.
Intellectually and academically, I fail.
I don't have a successful business or substantial income.
I'm not as wealthy as my wife's ex-husband.
Financially, I failed my wife and me.
I'm not comfortable with the amount of money I make.
I haven't created people.
I haven't created art.
I haven't created anything.
Artistically and biologically, I've failed.
And I'm making plans to see a doctor about how I think I'm a failure too much and I get anxious when I think about my family coming under attack.
I'm useless.
I don't want to catch up with somebody just to tell them I'm useless.
My wife stays with me because she can see I'm trying to do something, trying to be somebody better. Somebody else.
She's banking on a future me that hasn't arrived yet.
Cuz this me isn't cool.
Did I feel this way in Detroit? I wasn't happy. I had a great job, but everything else was crappy. Now, I have a great wife, but everything else is kinda crappy. I don't want to feel that way anymore. I keep telling my son that he sees the world as negative because he keeps looking at the negative, and if he could just focus on the positive he would see that it's not all negative.
Yeah, kid. I'm not sure how to do that myself.
My mom used to do this thing with me.
Name three things that are good.
Okay, ma.
Let's try it.
1. my wife and marriage.
...ummmmm...
...ummmmm...
Like, the shit that comes to mind are things like "it's good that I have enough money to pay my taxes", which just makes me furious that I am as poor as I am and STILL need to pay taxes, so I feel like that one doesn't count.
And the more I try to think of good things, I have this HUGE voice YELLING at me. SCREAMING at me: "You're fat!! You're fucking fat!! You're fucking useless and fat and will die because you're a useless fat fuck!!" And that voice is really making it hard, impossible, to think about something good. Because I'm fat, the voice it right. And as I start to think about things that make me happy, I keep getting sidelined by this voice.
In my head, I've got this image in my head of me being on a football field. I'm holding a kickball, and my wife and mom are a few yards in front of me. "Come on," they encourage me. "Run the ball to the other side of the field." And I start out, and I'm pretty eager and excited to run the ball to the other end of the field. And then The Voice shows up, and he's a big, black tar monster. Really tall, really hot, really angry, really insistent. He pushes me out of bounds, and the ref blows his whistle and the game stops so that I can position myself back on the field. And The Voice sets up in front of me, with my wife and mother behind him, still encouraging me to move forward. The ref blows the whistle again, and I run one or two steps forward, and The Voice pushes me out of bounds again, stopping the game. So I set up again, and the same thing happens. And then I resign myself to understanding that I will progress down the field a little bit at a time. I'm moving forward one or two steps at a time every time I play, I'll make it to my wife and mother eventually at this pace. And The Voice seems to understand my thinking has changed, and so he starts pushing be backwards out of bounds, so that I no longer am progressing forward.
And I know that somehow The Voice is me.
I'm pushing me back.
But I don't know how to stop.
My wife lets go of things much better than I do.
We've talked about how great it would be if she could just tell me how to let go of things.
So far, though, she can't.
In the movie "Miss Congeniality", Sandra Bullock enters a beauty pageant and is hated by most of the contestants. At one point, she falls down some stairs publicly. And then she goes and gives the other contestants pizza one night, and then makes a joke about herself in front of them, and they start to accept her, and she stops feeling so bad. She gets a lot of power that way.
In the movie "8 Mile", Eminem ultimately wins his rap battle against the enemies by admitting he is every bad thing they're going to say about him. He says yes, I am white, I am a bum, I do live with my mom, I do have a friend who shot himself in his leg, I did get beaten up by all of your gang. And then he reveals a truth about his opponent. It is just the truth that his opponent went to private school and his opponent lives at home with his parents who have a good marriage. That's it. And by accepting the truth about himself and his opponent, he becomes powerful and everything starts to be better.
In the movie "Ghostbusters", Peter grabs some mucus in a Petri dish and puts a ghost in a box.
In the movie "Rocky", boxing happens.
I'm pretty sure those last two are pointless. I'm pretty sure making jokes is a way in which I alleviate tension in my body and head and help my brain cool down. Sometimes it gets so hot in my head.
I dunno. I don't want to catch up with anyone. But I kinda do. Wouldn't it be better if I could just catch up with her via email, where I could communicate whenever I wanted and I could just make a joke and evade a question if she asks about one of the 8,000 landmine topics that send me into anxiety attacks? Maybe I'll tell her that... I can't catch up when she comes to visit, but if you sit down and write me an email, I will read it and perhaps will respond with a non-committal joke. THAT sounds good.
I don't have anything to tell her right now.
"I love my wife and the rest of my life has a shit-ton of tape on it holding it together-- some parts better than others-- and I'm working on getting a direct trucking route built to my life so that I can get regular shipments of tape without the hassles of going through a third party. It's all commerce. You wouldn't understand. You're not a huge business tycoon mogul like me. I'm goddam Rockefeller."
I don't know what I'm saying anymore.
I gotta keep working so that I can keep my promotion and not lose it and go back to financial straits such as we've been living in for ever.
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