This is going to ramble and wander all over the place. I watched some television last night. It’s not that I am above sitting in front of the tube it’s only that I get seven channels (three stations clearly enough through the static) as I’m not in a financial position to afford cable and when I get cleared to return to work I won’t be here to enjoy it so why pay for it. Anyway, I watched David Letterman (variety talk show for parts of the world where that name means nothing) and I watched an episode of Frasier.
There are very few celebrities that make me notice. I was never a guy that had posters of the super models or TV stars on the wall. It’s just not something that draws me. But, every once in a while I do take note of a personality and I hope that I can distinguish the difference between the real person, and a character portrayal that I fell in love with, if that person were ever in my world. It is interesting that I’m about to mention two names where their acting is quite good but I have never been attracted to them for that reason. I am pleasantly engaged by their real-life personalities. Back to Letterman. The first of those two women for me is Julia Roberts. I find her real and incredibly quick on the draw and last night she was both of those things and I was so wistfully wondering why I never had anyone like that in my life. I immediately thought of the other woman that I have incredible respect for – especially because she has had her fair share of adversity and has not been beaten down by it. That would be Nicole Kidman. Both redheads (although only Nicole is a real redhead) and I hope happily and permanently married with wonderful children. That’s all I ask for in this world are women with spirit, character, poise, brains and grace exhibited under pressure. Those two “do it” for me. I left the end of that broadcast . . . happy.
Then, I left the television on while I thought about composing a blog post and Frasier came on. There is history with that show and maybe that was where the first clouds started forming. My wife and I watched that show, and laughed, together. It was one of the few sweet memories I have left. I am so uncomfortable with Frasier, now, for the loss of that bond and especially for the fact I too easily identify with his pompous character, pretentious nature and total self-deceit as well as conceit. While others may enjoy the show and wonder what it would be like to know such a person I watch and wonder what it would be like to not be such a person. The episode I viewed last night hit me hard. Frasier had just broken up with an ideal woman and was on a binge of trapping his family and friends in a room where they couldn’t escape and pontificating about his woes. His father made the poignant observation that Frasier would always fail to keep a good woman. That sent him on a road trip to a secluded camp site where he intended to clear his head. Along for the ride, however, came the emotional and mental baggage of his first and second wives, a lover who had jilted him for another, and, his dead mother. The first discovery for him was that all had left him. All had abandoned him. I don’t have the mother complex. I never saw my mother as anything but my mother. She was never the model for all other women and she has never been my ideal. She was the first of a string of enablers but all that shows is I’m manipulative – nothing about anyone else. But what I couldn’t run away from and couldn’t turn off the TV to escape were the rest of his conclusions. He was so determined not to have women reject him and to be left alone that he made certain women rejected him and left him alone. Ouch. The second conclusion was that he never actually left any of those women. They were with him all of the time and influenced every past, present and future decision and especially his relationships with any new woman. No woman was ever allowed to stand or fall on her own merits in his life. Triple ouch.
I was absolutely devastated by that program. I didn’t actually get to sleep until around four, this morning, because of the demons that dialog awoke.
I am in a very inflexible and confining time of life. I have all of the guilt, debt, and responsibilities of all of my life from before to the present without any of the good things to make it bearable. I am afraid to meet people I know. I have not contacted my children in months because I fully expect to blurt out something like, “Your father is a failure and a fraud and it would be so much netter for you to treat me as if I were dead.” The love and trust of my children and their total belief in me is too painful. I can’t align it to fit into any part of the reality I am enduring. I have gone since February without a paycheck while waiting to be cleared, medically, to return to work. I have applied to and been rejected by menial jobs from gas station clerk to fast food restaurant help. How is this possible? As a consequence I have lived off the charity of family and friends. I can’t wait to get back to work to take that additional burden of daring to love me off of them. It is something I consider all of the time that I should finally surrender; just give up any last vestiges of hope and drop out to join the homeless and hopeless and forgotten. I'm not far from that at all. I am terrified of the fact that I fit the profile. I could be living in a box and engage the hapless passerby in a knowledgeable discussion of world events or Quantum Mechanics. I simply doubt I am able to continue to function on the level necessary to remain even on the fringes of society. I am isolated and alone and I am now chasing away and discouraging the few who have stuck by me. I am so ashamed and really scared all at the same time.
I lost my previous comforts and crutches and I haven’t recovered. I found a job that pays well but offers no other reward. I took that job for the money and it had just started to give me the means to settle old obligations and even to contribute in meaningful ways to my children whom I have not seen in three years. This month, June, was going to provide me a vacation where I expected to visit them and at least demonstrate I was functioning. My nine year old son actually worries that I have no place to live and no food. How can I live with the knowledge a child is deeply worried his dad is suffering? I hope he doesn’t comprehend where my real suffering is occurring. But, my health crisis in February has taken all of that away. I’ll have no vacation until another year passes, at least. It will then be a minimum of four years since I have hugged my children or heard their voice while looking at their faces. My daughter is thirteen. My sons are nine and seven. I don’t even have a recent picture of them to know what they look like and how they’ve grown. My children were literally wrenched from my arms at an airport five years ago. I have those memories of a three, five and nine year old being dragged away crying and screaming to stay with their father in front of me everyday. All they have known since is disappointment and broken assurances and promises.
So, if the tests which I am taking next week are good I will finally be going back to work. I will be driving a tractor-trailer across the country. That is the last thing I ever anticipated doing occupationally. As I said, it pays the bills and does so better than most other available legal means. That I will get caught up on my bills and obligations will be a relief but the life will be worse. Right now, I sit in an unfurnished apartment. I take advantage of an unsecured wireless router to have the internet connection that I use to post these blogs. But I hear the children play outside and the noise of people going about their day and I am still somehow connected. You – whoever you are that read these things – are my only contact with the outside world. There have been two women that have regularly commented on my posts and I have had some wonderful email traffic back and forth with them, as well. They are young, rightfully enthusiastic, energetic and busy. One shares my passion for writing but she is doing something about it and things are starting to happen for her. And, they should. She is a dynamo. The other is a scientist and appeals to all of the technical and professional things which satisfied me as a younger and ambitious man. They have both tried to prop me up. That has to stop. I can not let my manipulative ways use these two women as additional enablers in my Frasier psychosis. They also are experiencing and sharing things I can relate to in their posts. They are seeing things from the start when such things are new. I am seeing them when they seem as if they’ll never end and all things are old. One has longings and desires for both her art and her family and I believe with my whole heart she will find fulfillment in both. The other is studying her own behavior as well as that of the world around her and although she has struggled with bouts of isolation and frustration, hers have known beginning and end dates and she may look forward to known relationships in professional and private life that are secure and stable. I have none of that. I have been waging this war for decades. They have not. I wish them better success than I have had but I haven’t much fight left. They are also women. Not as fragile on the inside as I am.
I have friends and family that claim to be impressed by how I bear up under my current struggles. There is nothing there for me to take credit. I simply continue to breathe under the crush of consciousness. There isn’t any fight left – only a superstructure that has yet to yield and buckle. I am on one knee trying to catch my breath and as I continue to get beaten down I am asking why do I keep trying to stand up? My adherence to my spiritual and moral and ethical beliefs will not right the wrongs of this world. I am not some heroic figure that has the hopes of mankind in his care. When I ultimately collapse and finally fail for the last time I will go out with probably not even a whimper. Beethoven, was in a coma for the last ten days of his life. He awoke from that condition during an intense thunder storm, said, “This comedy is over,” and died. I will have no one recording anything I say now or at the end. I have not brought beauty or light. I am slipping into the ugly dark.
When I am in that truck I will be in a mobile prison. Truck driving is like solitary confinement. You are alone and alone with your own thoughts. I will be given a few minutes a day “in the yard” to get out and exercise my legs and visit with some of the other inmates and try to avoid some others. One of the first misconceptions I had to alter when I began driving was that truck drivers were the loner types who like the independence and freedom from family and normal job responsibilities. No. That’s not really true. That’s the exception and not the norm. A great many of the men I’ve met have stories similar to mine. They had families and other careers. Divorce, financial troubles and other hardships and heartaches brought those men into trucking just as it did me. I have heard stories to make my misery seem trite. But, because there is no release or escape from yourself as a driver the few moments of contact with other human beings are strained affairs. Too much or too little is said. Crazy thoughts and ideas get argued while you eat and plan your next stop. Between the racist garbage and conspiracy theories are the bragging rights and political arguments and the resolution of all the world’s problems over a glass of iced tea. The waitresses are often worn and more tired than just from a long shift. It is sadder for me to see women in the company of men like us and know they’re having it hard, too. Then there are all of the half-hearted attempts at flirting and choked cries for affection and attention from the men at the counter. And when you’ve had your fill of that there is the hollow sound of your boots to keep you company on the way back to your truck. If you aren’t wired with a TV and a laptop and a wireless broadband connection you are in for more solitude – just enough to chase you to seek refuge in sleep. The next time you awake the cycle starts all over again. There’s always that knock on the glass of your door by the pretty little drug addicts selling themselves to the drivers with money and nothing else. Depressed, yet?
Well, here’s where all of this is going. Soon. Hopefully, very soon I will be at least earning a paycheck and trying to remove some of the debt hanging like a vulture over my carcass. I do not have a television or a laptop or a broadband connection in my truck and I will be on the road away from “home” (my little apartment with the stolen wi-fi connection) for typically three weeks at a time. Despite all of that there is limited internet access while on the road but it is only sufficient to check my empty email inbox. I will not be able to post other than the two to five days I will be home per month. I am seriously thinking to let the bills continue to wait and use my first influx of cash to purchase my new lover – a laptop. Even so, I am looking at the world through an even narrower lense, at the moment, and wondering about the fate of my blog. This blog is my digital head. I am carrying all of the baggage of my unresolved and disappointing issues around and putting it on display as an attention seeking device. If I pull the plug I am in essence removing my own life support. I’m just wondering if that isn’t what needs to happen. I have an audience that has far more voyeurs than those volunteering to contribute their thoughts. What do I need that for? It is now the time to reflect on just what I am trying to do and say in the blogosphere and why I should continue, what I should continue, or if I should continue at all. I thought I was releasing things – letting go and moving on. I’m not so sure anymore. I’m tired of being kept company by only my own thoughts and the minuscule contributions by others are insufficient to make a life-altering impact. Where is the stimulating conversation I anticipated? Where are the me-changing discoveries? When will this comedy be over?
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