Tag Archives: Meaning

No more forking around!

10 Feb

I’ve been thinking about taking some classes, maybe towards a philosophy degree. Who knows. Like usual, I’m conflicted. I can’t make a decision.

Here’s what happened.

I was driving along last summer, content, singing to Bohemian Rhapsody, car dancing, and I came upon a fork in the road, so I pulled over. The road split into four. (How many two-tined forks do you own?) Each road had a sign:

  1. Go back to school
  2. Get a “real” job
  3. Write (seriously)
  4. The road you’ve been traveling for years.

It’s now February and I’m still sitting in the car staring at the signs. My battery’s dead, I’m shivering cold, and I have to pee.

Yeah, that’s about it.

Okay, now I’m out of the car, walking.

Let’s see, to stay on the same path would be the easiest. It’s comfortable. I’m used to it. But it might be time to challenge myself, shake it up, take some risks.

My past attempts to focus on writing were disastrous. It takes mere days to feel myself falling into depression as I struggle with self-doubt. I have thoughts of meeting my end like Edgar Allan Poe. I’d be found in downtown Edwardsville, delirious, before dying in a local hospital. The only difference: he was a writer, and I’m, well, not.

School sounds attractive right now until I think about student loans, homework, and, of course, the whole “social anxiety” issue. I guess it’s the idea of having a master’s degree that’s attractive, but I have doubts I can sustain that kind of commitment. I’m comforted by a plasterer who told me his sister completed–completed!–medical school only to decide medicine wasn’t for her.

Well, how about the road to a full-time job? Not yet. The little one is in first grade. I’d rather wait a few of years before taking on something that would keep me away from home upwards of ten hours a day. When I’m old and gray I’ll look back fondly on being around for the girls after school, greeting them off the bus, asking about their day, etc.

<sigh>

I’m just going to pee on this bush, put on my heavy coat, crouch down under this big tree and think about it a bit longer.

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My Life Lacks Meaning (And Hydrated Skin)

1 Dec

Wow, where have I been?

Well, forget about where I’ve been. Right now I’m sitting here in the basement with the hood of my hoodie up snug over my ears (basements blow in the winter) sipping a blended salad (don’t worry, I haven’t gone all “normal” since I last posted). This beast is a mix of green leaf lettuce, grapefruit juice, ice, raspberries, one medjool date, stevia, spirulina, cinnamon, water, and pineapple. No salad dressing if you were wondering. I can call it a salad because it’s mostly lettuce. It’s a beautiful forest green in color.

One reason I stopped writing is I caught a nasty case of “I suck.” I would type a  sentence and then I would delete it and think to myself: I suck. Then I would type a sentence, read it five times, shuffle a few words around, delete it, and then say out loud: I suck. After sucking for awhile you should be able to see why I would just stop trying.

So instead of writing I’ve been reading about nutrition and philosophy, mainly. I’m trying to figure out the meaning of life, not something one can figure out in a month, so, yeah, I’m still working on that.

I’m having what some call an existential crisis. Some go through this once in their life; it seems I push through 4 per year, this being my 31st (I’m throwing a big party when I hit my 100th existential crisis).

Let’s see what else has been going on:

  • I fell down the steps
  • I fell trying to run UP the steps
  • I’ve been eating mostly raw, vegan foods for the past two weeks
  • I lost five pounds
  • I’m exercising regularly again
  • I backed into a bush
  • I’m now shaving (my face) regularly for the first time in…I have never shaved regularly
  • I’ve decided that three showers a week are better than one, but five is too many.
  • Following the advice of my dermatologist, I’m trying to get in the habit of moisturizing my body from head to toe…every day.

This is what I look like now since I took up grooming.

Slathering myself with lotion completely sucks in the winter and it’s in the winter when I need it the most. If I could turn the oven on “warm” and get in it without killing myself, I would do this damn moisturizing routine in there. Brrrr! Is there some kind of lotion warming trick? Can I simmer some Jergens in a sauce pan? Anything?

I suck.

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An Excess of Black Bile, or, My Melancholy Day

19 Aug

What makes a meaningful life? Some days I think I know the answer to this. Today, it eluded me. Where do I fit in? What am I here to accomplish? Today, I drifted about town aimlessly carrying self-hatred on my back in the stifling heat. I fit in nowhere; I accomplished nothing. Today, life sucks. It’s just one day, right? I need to see the big picture, but when you’re still stuck in that bad day, everything is tragic.  

The coffee shop–yesterday, my salvation and hope for daily creativity–found me banging the wrong keys for an hour and a half, my right hand jabbing the BACKSPACE key over and over and over. The coffee tasted bitter, but everyone else seemed to think it was fine. Smiles and chatter all around. It’s days like this simple decisions are impossible and those I do make seem wrong, like the choices I present myself are sucky to begin with. Should I climb down into the sewer drain or drop-kick a bowling bowl? Either way, I’m f—-d.

I biked to the library to remind myself what real writing looks like. I read three short stories from a literary journal–one about a mom who gives birth to a baby made of butter. Genius. My kind of story. But that damn butter baby boxed my self-esteem into a bloody mess. Anyone can read a butter baby story. I want to write one.

I feel a new pressure now with the girls gone all day. I’ve been asked this dreaded question dozens of times: What do you do? It’s a stupid question; don’t we do many things? Should we be defined by how we earn money? Of course not. I’ve told many people that I work part-time out of the house so I can be at home with the girls. A stay-at-home dad. But what am I all day when the kids are gone? What’s left? What fills that huge vacuum? It’s sad that we get attached to our labels. I’m just me and that’s enough. It should be enough, but, of course, it isn’t.

So I’m not easily fulfilled. Is that just another way to say I have melancholy tendencies? I don’t know. What’s a good day to you? What kind of day gently slides you under the sheets and puts a smile on your face? How many smile-in-bed-after-reviewing-your-day nights does it take to create “a good life?” I know how most people spend their days. They do work they don’t enjoy, come home, spend a small amount of time with family & friends, zone out in front of the TV for two hours, then fall into bed, exhausted, only to wake up to repeat the same scenes. No wonder many look to the sky at some point and say “There’s got to be more to life than THIS.”

To exist is to suffer, Buddha said. I found this written in one of my notebooks yesterday. If that’s true, that we all suffer…why do I, so often, feel like I’m the only one? Intellectually, I know I’m not alone, but in the depth of my suffering, it’s what I feel.

Yet, tomorrow is a new day…one of the true beauties of life. Every moment is a new chance to turn it all around.

Let’s lay this day to rest.

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