Question

It hurts so bad. I never thought of it until now. The fact that I took so long to get there is either a testament to my affliction or testament to my insistence that she is beyond reproach.

How can she leave me because I’m ill? Is that just?

But I had/have a drinking problem. Right. So is that a sufficient character defect? How does one mistake affect the other?

Why does she think I wanted a second child? I love her, that’s why. I had no great dreams of anything but to make her happy with another child.

Oh god. I hate to think this:

What’s the difference between me and a man who has cancer?
The other man would have already died.

The bad part is that I know this has occurred to me already, and I keep forgetting.

Word of the Day

Crazymaker

Very interesting. The problem I have is in figuring which one of us is more talented in this apparently common skill among the emotionally manipulative. I know I’m guilty on occasion, though I never made it more than a desperation move. Shit, you would too if your wife was a genius rhetorician. You’d count yourself damn lucky when you got away with it.

Accountability

I want to take responsibility for what I have done to my family. How do I do that? I want to make this happen.

Soldier On

i have lost my job
it took so much work to get it
(wheeling and dealing)
i was so disappointed in it when I got it
later it became my shield because in spite of its unsuitability I was good at it
& i was going to school
& i was getting it done
& i was proud
but then one day something changed
everything became sinister
large things became giant and impenetrable
small things became confusing and too small to know
i don’t know what happened
but i kept soldiering on
& I kept my coals in the fire
& here it is years later
& I’m all worn out
I don’t look like I used to
and i damned sure don’t have the courage i once did
this one has seen too much of conflict and not enough of peace
but I’m still here dammit
still holding the remnants of that now useless shield
looking for all those things that are gentle
and all those things
which are sized just for me

God of My Understanding

Dear God as I understand You,

I have recently lost all of the most important things in my life. Earlier this year, I lost my sanity, then I lost my ability to play guitar, then I lost my sobriety, then I lost my job, my house, and finally my wife, who is a good woman that anyone would be well pleased to know. I have kids that I want to see, but so far it seems like a rare thing. Soon enough I’ll lose my health insurance, and things will continue to decline. It took six solid years of major depression to finally take its toll on the world outside; inside my suffering has been seemingly without end. I could not hide it anymore, and I knew I was in trouble. Perhaps it is just apropos that the inside now matches the outside, perhaps only now it is possible for me to heal. Perhaps not.

Nothing is certain in this world. It all seems to be a series of accidents, a hodgepodge of chaos mixed with hilarity and horror. For a long time, I thought “why should I believe in You at all? The world I live in doesn’t conform even to my lax standards of decency. People kill and die for you, in all these differing religions, and you permit that. If you exist,” I thought, “You must have a tremendous ego.” Add to that the fact that my solitary spiritual experience came during a psychotic episode, and you have a recipe for doubt.

Still, for reasons unknown to me, my thoughts return to You, over and over again like a broken record, and I wonder what it means. All I know is that I no longer have any confidence in what I know or don’t know, and my recent downturn has shown me that I have little left to brag about or to take for granted.

So, we’ll assume a few things:

1. That You exist.
2. That You take part in our affairs.
3. That, if not explicitly good yourself, you at least allow for good things to happen.
4. That You have some sort of plan for the world, the people, all of it.

That last one is where I always get stuck, but we’re going to give it a shot.

So my question is, if there is a plan, I’d just ask that you give me some small notion of what it is. I”m not asking that you lift me out of depression, I’m not asking you to remake my marriage or even to give me back my job. I’m not even asking to live very much longer. I’m just asking you to please, please set me on a course that I can live with, not to be happy, but neither to be sad. To be glad to be alive again. To play music again, even if it’s only through computers. I’ll accept gratefully anything that you provide and I’ll use it not for personal gain but to help my family and the others out there who have it as bad (or worse) than I do. Now, see, I know I’m doing deal-making, and I know from my childhood that you don’t make deals with God. But I have no other recourse, and I’m not asking for much, after all. Just a clue. It’s so hard to be all alone in this. My wife is no longer there to talk to, and no one has taken her place. So, I need this. I admit partial responsibility for my current situation and have taken steps to remedy things: I have quit drinking altogether. Though I’m just getting started, it’s a good start.

Thanks for listening, if You do that, and I hope You do.

God Help Me

I just can’t sleep, and I don’t know what to do.