I don’t fully understand what to do any more. Everything feels like too much work. Everything feels futile. My daughter talks about college and all I can think about is how I’m completely in no position whatsoever to fund any efforts for her to get a degree, even though I want it for her dearly. My son burns every opportunity he has to improve his school and academic on efforts to build a likely unsustainable instagram influence position, waiting until the day after the very last day to turn in school work, followed by relentless and insistent pestering of his teachers for some opportunity to do some last minute thing to just get a passing grade. I’m not overly optimistic he will graduate, although I’ll do all I can to get him to do so, at 18 he will have more autonomy and far less life experience to recognize the failure at hand should he choose to not complete his senior year.
My irritation levels have spiked dramatically with his moving in full time. My ex wife has made it a point of lament that he’s not living with her yet I can not imagine she’s not silently appreciating that there’s peace in her home for the first time in years. While what peace I had with what was and ideally rotating custody, one that allowed me at least two days of solo time for solo endeavors is gone. In all fairness it’s not that he’s a bad presence as much as it is a constant presence, which amplifies the little things that might otherwise roll off our respective backs, but instead, gather and pile up in place.
Additionally, as the new year looms and my job feels ever more at risk, my scattered efforts to find other options have proven fruitless, so much so that my spirit has been crushed and I see little or no help of being able to recover from a probably layoff in 2021 beyond taking the lowest paying position in some retail situation just to have some trickle in income. Meanwhile my ex, who’s master’s degree was paid in full for her in the 1st two years of our marriage, did absolutely nothing with it whatsoever. It’s likely crumpled with fecal stains beside her bedroom toilet at this point, having served the only purpose she could muster the imputes to act on. Yet she wanted kids, wanted a home in Los Gatos, wanted to remodel, wanted to send the kids to private school even after we bought the house in the school district we did because of the schools, and more. As my daughter reviews college and career options she has only me to rely on for help. Her mom’s apathy for her responsibility in this is only overshadowed by her expectation that I am somehow obligated by nothing more than my having been the only person making efforts for the past 20 years to be the only person making efforts for the remainder of my life.
Oh and out of nowhere, today, the exec leaders at my job gave me the recognition of granting me 80k more options with a 4 year vesting. In what? The company that’s likely to fold in a few months? Why? What the hell is that all about? I can’t fathom the rational and I’m so detached at this point that I didn’t even consider pushing back on the value or plan, or the references to how we’ve turned a corner being a dead end street with no room to turn around in.
My relationship with my wife has stalled in many ways. I’m not talking about these concerns and thoughts much any more because I’ve already talked them to death. I’m painfully aware that this relationship is critical to me in so many ways and I’m doing all I can to keep as connected and engaged as possible, but over the course of the past few months we’ve become a bit more isolated and focused on our respective interests instead of sharing them. That’s worrisome to me. Yet, like I stated at the outset I feel the same recognitions each day without doing nearly enough to ensure I am heading int the right direction. It’s as if the boat has no rudder, no sail, and winds have died down, leaving the vessel to idly bob in place, day after day after day.
All I’m doing now is waiting. Waiting for something to give. Waiting for the next demand on my time to take me out of my haze while I work on it as a relief to having to wait or face my own inaction. Waiting for some unexpected gust of force to slam this apathetic boat against the rocks, forcing my abandonment and forcing some next level of severe significant change to be mandatory. Which I’ll deal with as a distraction from the real issue at hand. My internal sense of great failure and inability.
I remain optimistic that my perspective will change again, it always does, but the nature of these mood swings does wreck havoc on my stability all the same. I wonder people who’s wrestle with such mood swings might be subject to physiological or neurological influences that bring about their internal struggles. I’ve read about HSP’s and found myself identifying with that deeply. But is the origin of this inherited, bound to ones diet, childhood, what? When David Byrne mentioned (see prior post) that the wiring of an infant brain reduces and stabilizes over time, it made me wish I could see my own wiring diagram and better understand how it evolved, and in particular, the differences between myself and others that achieve so much more in their lives, with so much more confidence and conviction, than I seem capable of doing.
I have an idea for a book that runs along this theme. It’s about somebody who lives most of their entire lives completely clueless of the fact that, outside of his presence, he’s known as being ‘special’, being given accommodations for his disabilities, allowed to function in a relatively menial capacity wherein his limited mental abilities might go without significant impact. At an extreme, like an autistic man working as a bagger at at grocery store. Only what if that man was never, ever made truly aware of his limitations in comparison to those around him? Does a person living in a bubble ever know the bubble exists? And what might that discovery feel like, to realize near the end of your life that you’ve spent it ignorant of your own, well, ignorance. As they come to a realization and reflect back on glances, comments, treatments, doors that opened, ways they were received…. as it all starts to fall into place and they recognize this in retrospect, would the experience relief, or devastation?
And, no. I don’t want to talk about it. I just need to write about it. Please don’t ask me to discuss it, I won’t. I’ll brush it off. This isn’t something I’m writing to open a dialog or solicite feedback, it’s just something I need to journal about and get written down.