Derailed

Life. Look, I don’t swear much when I write, mostly because my mom sometimes reads these, but life is sometimes fucked up and exhausting. I was about to say especially these days with covid but I am not sure that is true. Sure, a global pandemic that is still raging after two brutal years is unprecedented, but I am not certain that life hasn’t always been difficult for one reason or another. Maybe these days we all finally share an affliction, along with everything else. Maybe now with social media and the firehose of information that most of us have access to it is more immediate and raw. In the elder days, we didn’t always know what was happening across the world or in other communities. But now? In. Your. FACE. ALL the TIME.

And I have had, since summer, a bunch of little things all the time that are hammering away at me. I’ve talked about some of them here, others on Twitter, but they are here and not leaving. And really, I am worn down. I can’t care about most of them most of the time anymore. I simply don’t have the emotional capacity. I would love to be concerned about all the troubles of the world, but that simply isn’t possible for a fully functioning adult, and let’s face it, I am not one of those. On good days, I can barely make it, but on most days? Forget anything other than surviving.

I’m being real because life is real. I suffer from depression and social anxiety and other mental health afflictions that make it difficult for me to cope most days. But none of that is really what I want to talk about right now.

I am feeling particularly down because I have made commitments that I am not currently able to follow through on. I was taught to always make good my obligations, to honor what I said, and to let my “yes be yes” as the “Good Book” says. On the surface, as an adult, you should generally be reliable and dependable. I find that a challenge.

Example: my wife wrote more than half a book on writing. She began by asking me to look over a few chapters and to give her some feedback and help edit. It grew and developed into a project that I was helping to write by punching up the prose. I gave myself the deadline of October to get it done. It’s October now. How much have I done? None of it since summer. I feel terrible. My wife is depending on me to finish the book and deliver on my promise. But the last few months? I haven’t had the mental energy. I haven’t had the emotional reserves to pour into a large project. I completely missed the deadline. She asked me about it today, and I admitted that I hadn’t worked on it. I felt horrible to have to say that, because I know it is something she worked hard on, and not only do I want to honor her hard work, but I want to honor my commitment to do my part of the work.

I will get it done, eventually. I know that isn’t what my wife wanted to hear this morning, but I wasn’t about to lie. I wasn’t about to sugarcoat, or tiptoe. I have always tried to own up to my shortcomings. I don’t always do the work or follow through, and I fail, and that is my own particular road to hell. I could cheat, I could shortcut, but that proves nothing except that I know how to fake it. And I am not about fake things. Where does that leave me? With a half completed manuscript and a broken promise. I am struggling to work on my book of poetry. I have started a GoFundMe for my podcast that I want to start. Progress on those projects? I have my poems collected and that is all. I have no donations and no way to start on my podcast. I feel like I’ve walked down a single road and found multiple dead ends.

I have this maddening inability to exercise my full self. I really want to work on these projects and more. I want to create a work of poetry. I want to start a podcast. I want to finish the book my wife and I are writing. Some days I can work on some project or other. Most I can’t. I know that I have written about this before. Perhaps it is my lot in life. I seem made to suffer, as my internal Threepio would say. I have tried medications and therapy and they have moved me to a place where I can half function half of the time. But that far, and no further, it seems.

I wish I had a happy ending, a positive note, or a way to see the sunshine through the clouds. I’ve got nothing. Not now. Not here. I am exactly what I appear to be, a simple man, trying desperately to make my own way in the universe. Sometimes I end up among the stars, flying high, but most of the time, I end up at the bitter end of a bar sipping a galling drink, ruminating on the broken road that led me to where I am. I’ll finish my libation, head to bed, and hope for a better tomorrow. That is all anyone can do.