It’s a lot to take. I’m just trying to be there for her. I’m trying to protect her from herself. She’s a lot like I am, she worries and stresses. There’s just not enough information to get really panicked over yet.

But it’s Tuesday and I haven’t gotten anything done. I only have two things to do now which leads me to believe that maybe I’m not being used anymore. There was an issue a couple of weeks ago in which I demanded some financial professionalism to the dismay of those who made mistakes and failed to remain professional. It was resolved to a great end but I fear a certain low-level someone might not be as accepting of my willingness to call the bullshit as her employer.

“I’m not used to anyone being as … direct with me as you are.”

Maybe those words are still ringing in her head. I’ve tried to back off but it’s difficult to do that with certain types of people. She’s stressed and has a lot of work on her plate each day, but checks and calls shouldn’t be a problem for her. In reality they’re both the lifelines of her job. Then again, she freely admits that she only devotes two hours of each day to maintenance calls and techs. Her and the rest of them up there all fail to understand that the two people I replaced rejected them because of their collective inability to remain professional and focused. I wish they’d let me come into the office and help out. I could have the maintenance side of things turned around in two weeks.

And that’s not to say that they can’t do the same, but for some reason they continually don’t. I fear it’s a work overload and it didn’t get any better with someone being fired a few weeks ago. I really don’t know what the problem is, I just know how anal and controlled I am and that those qualities would prevent me from falling into whatever hole is housing them at the moment.

I know what she means by saying that I’m direct with her. I tell everything like it is and with very little fluff. I am wordy at times and my emails show it, of course. But I take care of my business. I know the answers to questions she has for me but she makes it impossible for me to tell her the truth, so I have to lie and twist and withhold to keep things going. I don’t have the money to pay my rent this week. I have two calls pending and can’t schedule one while the other requires more materials than I can afford right now.

I have bills to pay too, but that doesn’t seem to sink in. I don’t know what to do. Obviously a part-time job would make a huge difference, and I’m going to start trying to find one today but it won’t be easy. I’ve indulged in far too much “wacky tobacky” lately.

Meanwhile I don’t know if my girl even realizes yet the mess I’m in. I hope it’s a mess we’re in but being the stubborn glutton for punishment that I am, even when I can’t handle it, I say it’s my mess. I’m not ready for all of this to fall apart. But I know the drill – it’s been the same for 12 years now, sometimes the calls just dry up for a bit. If I had something on the side it would help me when the time comes to get back into the swing of things. So that’s what I have to work on. I just have to trust they all have the integrity to tell me when something is wrong like I do them. I’m all about making things work the way best suited for all involved, until certain lines are crossed. So far there haven’t been any lines crossed but I also don’t actually know what the lack of calls is stemming from.

That’s my worrying side…

I’m a positive person. I like to see the bright side of things whenever I am able to. I will not put on blinders toward the practical and real for the sake of my optimism. I want to believe things can be good again. I want to believe that one day soon I will be able to look at myself in a mirror. I desperately yearn for the feeling of worthiness.

I try to create anything I can if I think it will help me fill this void. I try to read texts on my interests, such as the human mind and psychology, that I’m just not smart enough to comprehend. Sure, I catch the jist of it but its true meaning eludes me.

It is screwing with me to feel like this. It couples with something I’ve known for some time now to create an impending disaster that I merely choose to avoid; the only part of death that scares me is the pain of the method by which I die. I’ve suffered enough types and strengths of pain to easily field that hurdle in stride. I’m not suicidal. I’m not implying that I am. But what is it to be suicidal? Having no discernible attachments, pleasures, or ambitions in life; nor the fear of dying – I think that about covers it.

I wonder if I didn’t fight and hide my depression as willfully as I do, if anyone would notice. Would someone try to help me? I suppose, though, that if I reach that point, help would no longer be of any use to me.

Help is what I need right now. I don’t need very much, not by worldly standards, though a massively unobtainable amount for most of my family and friends. I’m no different than anyone else. My struggles are of my own doing and I’ll be damned if my pride is going to allow me to accept the charity I so desperately need just to get a leg back under me. Just one leg and I can do the rest for myself and live in gratitude every second of every day thereafter.

Alas, money is not in my fortune. Happiness isn’t apart of my future. You could read this and ask yourself exactly why I am so certain of that, and the answer is so simple. For every instance that I am happy, I am miserable for being happy. I abhor the desire to smile and yet I dream of doing so. I loathe events in my life where food is involved and I resent myself and the entirety of my last 10 years of existence.

Just an if away …

I am particularly wounded by simple and complex things alike. Losing the first woman I’ve ever felt real love and desire for crushes me. The Cowboys suffering the injuries against the Giants this week just about knocks the bottom out.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to feel. What I do doesn’t change how I feel and these horrible feelings only make me want to do worse.

I try to write and it’s drivel. I try to sing and it’s flat. I try to drive and go nowhere. I try to make new friends and make dates and it highlights my miseries. I try to turn to family, casually of course, for a change in direction and they’re busy; wrapped up in their own lives and their own friends. I’m facing a mountain here and I don’t really know how to climb.

A developing side note – my own sister could actually make an unequivocal difference in my life, but she doesn’t. Instead she helps a friend with something temporary and rather trivial. I don’t expect much at all from her. She is the one, after all, who wielded the hammer as my coffin was being nailed shut last year. For that matter, my uncle and a cousin, a cousin who has been through roughly every devastating effect of my biggest problem herself, each could help if they so choose. They have the means. Between the three of them I’m betting that about 80% of my problem could be repaired. Then I could have a life; some happiness even. I’ve grown too weary to be upset or angry about it.

Hell, I’ve grown too weary of just about everything to do anything anymore, save for sex. And I’ve been doing that more and more lately, even alone, in anticipation of the very brief relief that follows.

Damn it. I’ve lost my grip …

This is the reason for which you attribute me the word pride. I wish that it were true, for you mistake my sorrow as pride.

If I could stand between the lines and await my fate, I certainly would. I would equally fall as free as a bird or stain my entire world red. But this pain is mine, not yours. This pain belongs to me because I am deserving. I am the only one who can survive it.

This pain blinds you, as it does me, so you fail to see the truth behind the mystery.

I do not accept this miserable fate as a glutton or masochist, I accept this pain as a savior and a blessing. The action of moving on is not difficult, nor unappealing, it is simply not the evil that I want.

Colors all seem gray and love is more something said, but it wasn’t always this way. I am the ant atop the hill surrounded by the shadow of a magnifying glass. The heat grows the more I run, the fear builds as I cannot hide. More and more I’m lost in this word pride.

But to burn alive at the hands of the spiteful and misguided child is my burden to bare. It is my salvation and redemption, it is about the only thing for which I truly care.

That you cannot see doesn’t surprise me, only that you speak to condemn me.

I could end it all tonight. But this pain is mine, not yours. This pain belongs to me because I am deserving. I am the only one who can survive it. You are not me and I am not you, but you are not you and I am not free.

It is all I can do, all I can ever be, I must save her this pain, I must save her.

Alone I am free, but together I am your pain. This I will not be.

The problem has always been spending the effort to figure any of it out.

As honest as I am 99% of the time, there is still that one percent in which I lie, withhold, and allow myself to be oblivious to a certain many things. That one percent is usually reserved for myself.

I’ve spent years being selfish, taking what I wanted only when I wanted it. Sending mixed messages to everyone around me who mattered and confusing them on such a simple matter…do I even care?

I’ve known, and loudly contended at times, that I always have cared for those people. Even when faced with the evidence of my own actions contradicting those words I would hold tightly onto them. I never once lied about caring, about loving, or about wanting more.

I only neglected to mention the correct levels of my feelings to those inquiring.

I had a spark of sheer integrity when I was about 20 years old, and it kills me to this day that I had to develop and follow through with it only by moving on before I was free to do so. I gave up a life for the well-being of another that I cared about. Someone who I knew felt the same way I did but with a far deeper sense of loyalty.

Who knows for sure how long it would have lasted had I not ended it. I fear for her sake that it could have lasted the remainder of our lives.

My biggest test of self was in marriage and family. My biggest failure in life was in my marriage and family. And no wound burns so badly each night as that very undeniable fact.

Could it have been different? Absolutely. That’s not where my mind starts to swirl. It’s often said that if you aren’t finding the answers you need to deal, cope, or simply move forward then you just aren’t asking the right questions. Could it have ended any differently? I’ve fought the answer to that question for years now, even since before that end actually played itself out, but I think I’ve finally got a grasp on that answer and what it means.

I could have been the perfect husband and father, completely devoted and without an ounce of selfish desire. I could have been straight from the minds of the greatest poets in history and practiced all of the wisdom of the highest valued marriage advice. I could have been everything she wanted and it still wouldn’t haven’t ended any differently.

She still would have left, taking the very core of my heart away from me and running to South Texas with it. She would still stonewall me and act as if I don’t exist. She would still try her damnedest to erase any memories of me from my daughters mind. And she would still lie to me about the real activities she was involved in while we were married.

Even after the divorce has been finalized she won’t fess up to cheating, to lying, to giving up…

It makes me recall how we met and the turmoil that seemed to appear wherever we were. The lies, the games, the omissions and twisted versions of reality that often seared through the walls of our first apartment and into our neighbors living rooms. I should have known long before that it was a mistake to be anywhere near her, but calling the fire department when she faked passing out in the shower should have been the red flag I heeded.

I wanted to believe she was a better person than that. Bloodying her own nose and blaming me for it, saying I hit her…did she really think I didn’t know when my body made contact with another?

It’s the future that has me thinking about her character. Wondering if she’s changed my daughter’s last name because of her own ill feelings towards me for not giving up. I didn’t give up when we were married, I didn’t give up during a 90 day separation, I didn’t even give up after we went to court for the first time as much as it disappointed her.

I’m not delusional. I don’t think I was perfect. I didn’t say the right things or do the right things. I didn’t spend enough time with either of them; but I never gave up. I married a woman who I cared for only as a friend, albeit a fwb.

I resented her for a long while after we split because of how she moved on, but it took until recently for me to realize that I didn’t resent her for living without me…I was over her quickly myself. What I resented was how she was able to remain happy through it all. She had our daughter there with her.

I just had purgatory to endure.

I still do.

But now I’ve started being much more honest with myself. I had a four-month fling that ended in February of this year. The woman was a great one that I never wanted to hurt, but sadly I wouldn’t admit that I wasn’t in any shape for a relationship. I might not be still.

The only person I want now is my daughter. She is the only human contact I need. My heart aches in her absence and there is no hope of relief coming any time soon.

That lack of hope is new, though. It’s just occurred to me that I have been looking for a connection worthy of filling in for her. Granted, it’s been in totally different meanings but while I can’t be near the one I want, I’ve been looking for another one to be near.

The thought of that kills me. I don’t want my friends for any other reason. I tire of interacting with them quickly after making contact. I find it easy to permanently blow off a friend of 16 years for missing a couple of text messages and a phone call. I find flaws in people I meet and use those to disregard them, again causing myself to lose interest.

I’ve been a loner all my life and not once have I ever felt so alone. Not even the day my ex and my daughter left 375 days ago. Not even when I put a blade to my skin…I was drunk and building up some adrenaline for the cut I wanted to make most.

But I want to be a little less odd anymore. I want some modicum of normalcy in my life. I want to want friends because I can still enjoy a night out, but don’t want that to also be a loner activity. I want to get in my truck and have a place to go, even as much as I crave just soaring the highways at night with nothing but some music and the sound of my own exhaust trailing behind me.

I want a companion, someone to talk to and share with and laugh with. I want someone to explain to me what I probably already know…why I am so desperate to engrave any part of my daughter into my appearance. A bracelet she liked, a necklace with blocks spelling her name on it, a tattoo of that necklace as a bracelet, her pictures surrounding my computer and on my cell phone desktop, the clay plate my ex helped her make for my father’s day two years ago with her shaken hand print cast into its face.

Or why I’m changing my appearance lately. A hair cut I’ve never liked. Wearing shorts everywhere, and a backwards cap. Why I’ve been having dreams of an increasingly violent struggle to visit my daughter on an agreed upon and arranged visit. I’ve started throwing pillows and things on my bedside table in my sleep because of it.

But most of all I want someone to explain to me why I want nothing else in life but to see my daughter again…

It’s a feeling I understand better than I ever dreamed I would, but one too impractical to live solely with.

The 9/12 Project

I am a Ron Paul supporter and an inactive member of the Campaign for Liberty, thanks largely to such limited resources prohibiting being more active.

I watched the debates and complete wash-out of Dr. Paul’s presidential campaign a couple of years ago and grew to admire an idea that he pushed throughout his campaign—Audit The fed. It’s a situation only getting more out of hand each day as the Federal Reserve continues to devalue our already worthless currency by printing more and more to cover the extreme and reckless spending of the U.S. government.

At the time people didn’t know for certain how the spending habits of Washington would change once a new President was put in place; we didn’t know who would be President at that time. Most of us assumed race would not win the election alone, but alas our countrymen failed again. Since Obama took office we’ve seen that his idea of a change was more of the same, but instead of settling an old family score with Saddam, like Bush, he is trying to turn our health care system Communist.

It’s not that I don’t see the need for something to be done with our current version of health care, in fact I see that it is on its last leg if something doesn’t change soon. Throwing more money at it is not the answer though.

Medical treatment seems to have taken example from the electronics industry, you know, the one that has us all scrambling for bigger and better TVs, computers, cell phones, and God knows what else every few months. Our health care has been on a steady incline in pricing that’s leaving hard working Americans fighting to stay healthy without the need for doctors, because they’ll regret enjoying their freedom of lifestyle when the doctor’s bill comes in.

Our health care system has but one major problem to contend with, and while our elected officials are still ignoring the demands of the citizens to handle the problem directly, it is a simple problem to fix. Regulate health care costs and you ensure every American has the opportunity for what is a God given right—good health and ready treatment in the absence of good health.

The last thing we need is more spending, more encouragement for the health care industry to keep raising prices as if they were paying retail for their supplies and equipment. It’s time health care in America went wholesale to the public, not on the public dole. And it’s time that Obama realizes who is calling the shots here…We The People…

Jose Ortega y Gasset said it nicely…”Order is not pressure which is imposed on society from without, but an equilibrium which is set up from within.“

The balance in this country is way off and it has been for many, many years. The coming Congressional elections promises to be one the most interesting wake up calls for politicians in decades, but a promise of action is not enough. The people of this nation need to stand up and demand that our officials do our bidding as our Four Fathers intended.

The 9/12 Project isn’t perfect, like our great nation of freedom and liberties, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Well it’s been three months since I wrote that little poem and nothing has changed in that time.

Perhaps the truth is that little has changed. Some things have certainly changed. For starters, I don’t write on my blog anymore. A person I found myself very fond of is no longer around. I’m no longer employed.

I still don’t get into the details of who I’m fond of because it’s private, and someone taught me very well that private things should never be aired in any amount of detail. See, I do listen.

I’m not sure how I lost my job—maybe I did exactly as I should have that morning, and maybe I didn’t. I’ve never been one to take shit from anyone, but not even I can say whether it was foolish to stick with that character trait that morning.

I have started trying to reduce my existence. I suppose the only related secret is that I have been so stressed over it that I’ve allowed it to affect me so deeply.

As for why I’m doing it, that’s not a secret at all. Not to me, and not to any one person who reads this. I simply cost money to live and there isn’t enough of it to go around.

I can’t say anything about it in a normal way, resorting instead to using my blog, because regardless of how much thought or effort I put into it, I’ll be perceived as trying to induce a guilt trip or perhaps sounding unreasonable or childish.

Since I wrote that little poem, nothing has changed with the economy either. I’m trying to fight off my own thoughts that the economy is affecting my job hunt, but sometimes the inevitable reality is simply that things are what they are.

There’s no way to change them or fix them.

It still doesn’t help me sleep any better at night though. It doesn’t help me rest any easier during the day. Knowing that simply means that I must deal with it and move on.

But isn’t moving on about progress? I haven’t seen a lot of that lately.

I still flock to my most unhealthy addictions and obsessions without any regard for the consequences. Consequences, that I cannot control, that take their toll on me in ways that most can’t see and only I feel.

But then my feelings are another thing all together. I have so few of them anymore that I’ve begun to wonder if I really don’t care about certain things, or if the feelings I have just don’t register anymore.

I suppose there isn’t much of a difference, is there?

I wanted to write a blog but I’m not satisfied with what I have to write.

And now I’m cold. Had to go help get snow off the van. I wonder if she notices how my willingness to do little stuff like that is always high. I used to groan about having to do simple things like that, even with Kaytie. I have to eliminate all hesitation with that stuff to feel like I’m doing something.

It just doesn’t apply to everything.

Taking the trash out is one of those things. I have an issue with something and I won’t tell anyone what it is because it’s stupid. It’s still real and valid but it’s stupid and I’m embarrassed by it.

And it’s not one of those things were someone thinks something is stupid, but those around them wouldn’t actually agree. This is stupid and those around would agree, I know because I’ve mentioned it in minor ways to see.

In true dramatic fashion I’ve used a lot of bites of text to not say what it is. Oh well.

Do you ever irritate yourself? I do. I feel a compulsive need to over explain everything. Some times people think I do it because I’m nervous or because I’m stalling or even because I’m trying to belittle their intelligence. The truth is that the more agitated I become with myself over it, the more I see that I have very little control over it.

It’s how I word things, my phrasing, and it’s just there.

Maybe if I do finish learning Spanish it’ll help in that area. I’ll have to keep my phrasing short and sweet from a mere lack of knowledge, and maybe I can apply that to English as well.

I tell you though; this up and down bullshit is getting on my nerves the more I experience it.