Some days, I wish I wasn't so hollow that I could remember how to cry. That takes a dangerous amount of alcohol, but while I sit here and wallow, I feel like if I could just be a sniveling irrational idiot, maybe it would scratch the right kind of itch.
It just never seems to get better. I do not get lasting highs. I do not find “comfort.” I don't get lucky on things that aren't what I was born to take for granted. I don't feel stable. That's a board in the kind of floor I can't build. I don't feel stable for shit. The second I do? Here's a charge. Here's an obligation. Here's a particularly ridiculous case. Here's a frozen Hell storm.
I find it insane how much I've been willing to sacrifice, and I still can't seem to figure “it” out. I'm not a good friend or good with people? One field please. I want to create and build to my heart's creative delight? Okay, let me choke down your “real world” and budget in a way that might suggest a prayer. Think you're doing something right? Oh, hey there, did I mention one thing or another that makes sure you're glued to your helpless and flailing existence?
I hear so much bullshit every day. So many people lying, not about dumb big and thoughtful things like I must be registering as doing, but about dumb shit. “Well, I didn't actually see him doing coke, but I know for sure he used to, so it must be around the kids.” “I don't have a drug problem, no I won't screen.” “I don't have to punish my kids, they're so well behaved.” “I heard you guys love taking kids away.” “It's HER fault, not MINE!”
No responsibility, not a care in the world as they sleep until 2 in the afternoon in their disheveled house. No thought to the wasted time and energy using their spitefulness to weaponize us into nonsense interviews and questionable scenarios. Smoking themselves to death, drinking in “secret,” being poor enough that it probably qualifies as neglect, but not in an illegal way, I go from one house to the next hearing excuse after excuse. And remember, all of these people are the ones with kids. I at least suffer my treachery alone.
Is now the time to back track and kiss ass about institutional barriers and sympathy for poverty? I'm not feeling that. Because my point isn't about all the things that fuck you up. My point is about how you respond to them. Where's my caseworker? Who gets to pick up the slack for everyone I wish to blame for why I can't get where I need to be? How do I find ways to internalize blame for things like the weather? I mean, I know how that happens, but who can I commiserate with when I have the unshakable habit of often getting blamed for merely existing in whatever space I'm in?
I have you, words in front of me to reflect on indefinitely. You started soaking up tears well in advance of today. You get to carry the weight of flogged and tarred expectations. You get to whine and whine and whine and never make a sound. You get to be that guilty pleasure for the quiet friend now stalker who waits to see if I'll ever get around to doing or saying something properly crazy. Where would I be without you, oh words?
I just want to be alone. I want to be alone and do whatever. I want to go back to sleeping until noon with thousands in the bank I don't need. I want to feel normal in my way. It's not normal to watch as much TV as I do. It's not normal to have literally no emotional attachment to a single person or child I encounter throughout my day. It's not normal to keep pretending like every day spent making money for its own sake, or to pay off ridiculous tickets, or to bleed into an endless-array of Hill House never-done renovations, or like I should want to give a fuck about not being the guy who's trying to get himself invited to lunch.
I don't belong here. The world has a fair amount of decent-enough people who are trying in spite of themselves. Everyone's got bills and I'm not the first person to get pulled over for something stupid. If I were fat, or ugly, or dumb, or more in tune with a higher degree of childhood trauma working its magic to rob me of any form of productive adult life, I'd probably have a lot more friends. If I were able to drink religious Kool-Aid, I could get the Superman statue at work for my overtly pleasant persona and do finger-guns as I tell people how much I like them.
I'm just not. I'm not a nice person. I'm not a good person. I have an incredibly well-crafted mellow shell and “nice smile,” as one dodgy grandma put it, that lets me get my job done and whisper to anxious people like Cesar Milan. I don't want them groveling, pathetic, and deferential because they're terrified of my job title. I don't get off waiving “In the name of child safety!” as I tramp through your house or think it's an everyday thing to have someone take a picture of your refrigerator.
Why am I carrying on so much about my job? Is it “burning me out?” If only. I'm burnt out. I'm burnt out on expectations. I'm burnt out again, viciously, stupidly, believing something could go “right” for more than a few moments at a time. In this moment, I feel like I'm always going to be broke. I'm never going to pay things down. I could switch to eating bagged vegetables and Ramen noodles for 3 months, and I'll find myself with $500 cash and a litany of surprises, and not even the marginal joy of good meals to carry me through the pointless days. How depraved to bemoan being fed, no?
And no one's coming, no one's calling, no one cares. I could die in this chair tonight, some secret pinched artery that only happens after the exact amount of days I've managed to sleep incorrectly in a chair. I'd be lucky to be pilloried postmortem. I need to sleep. I need to sleep, but I'm afraid it's going to start feeling too good and I'm just not going to get up for an indeterminate amount of time. I'll just sleep through work and use my few sick days. I'll sleep through phone calls that only tell me not enough has been done. I'll sleep through a few hapless “friends” reaching out after they think some line has been crossed. If I have to wait, and wait, and wait, and doubt, and isolate, and conserve, and watch or read and pretend, I'd rather just sleep. God forbid things actually start to work. You think I'm insufferable now...
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