I’m in a rut and I can think of no way out except to consciously push forward with no real idea of what they outcome will be.
Symptoms of the rut are:
1. Sleeplessness.
2. Not earning a living.
3. Not doing anything to advance the careers I once felt passionately about.
4. Eating too much junk.
5. No regular physical activity beyond chores and child-rearing.
6. Feeling old.
1. The sleeplessness is a complicated issue but I believe I’m onto part of the cause. During the day I am constantly on guard. I listen for the sounds of my kids coming to harm. Sometimes I even interact with them. Because I care. I really can’t stop this until my wife comes home from work and then I need to stay engaged in order to maintain an environment conducive to emotional health. In short, the only time I can be purely myself is after everyone’s asleep and my light-sleeping spouse is there to back me up on kid support. My choice appears to be forced insomnia versus complete loss of self. And yeah, it’s hard to feel great about committing words to media when you know they’re half-assed, lesser things than they would be if you were tanned, rested and ready.
So what?
We must commit to putting something into the grid and hope to develop what muscles are possible under these conditions. Giving up has been tried and found wanting.
2. Not earning a living is pretty self-explanatory. I used to earn a respectable wage even if it was by disreputable means. I taught acting to people who knew less than I did. I acted. I did odd-jobs and it all added up to a nice one-bedroom in Silver Spring. I even had a cat. Life happened, family and expenses grew and my wife was way better qualified to earn the bucks necessary to join the middle-class. My prospects as an actor are better here in the small tidal pool of DC than the acidic lake of LA, but I can’t just blast around to auditions and jobs like I used to with a baby to care for.
This means staying home and writing something that might earn some money for my kids’ college. I’m thinking about a series of fantasy novels about a boy wizard who keeps fighting the same guy every book.
Actually I’m thinking about the need to write something my kids would find useful and comforting after I’m dead. Maybe a cookbook?
3. Number three I am taking the first baby steps toward addressing tonight. I’ve been busy with moving and kids but that phase will be somewhat alleviated when my boy starts school next week. One kid is less work (and worry) than two and my baby actually naps during the day.
Also now that my beloved Dems are falling down on the job I’m getting that old anger that motivated me to lash the bastards from 2000-2008. Half-full, right?
4. Screw it, I’m sugared up bad. It’ll kill me but I am renewing a 100K life insurance policy for 12 bucks a month. A great way to get the kids to buy me donuts and soda. I’m hoping the Sugar Bear will abate as other stuff takes its place.
5. I’ve been keeping indoors a lot because of the heat and the bugs but the weather’s changing and this is a great place for biking, running and other outdoor catalogue stuff. Oddly enough I walked a lot more in LA but I was closer to stuff then. Also I forgot to give myself a PE credit for sex and air hockey. OK, mostly air hockey. I stick with what I’m good at.
6. I am old by caveman standards. For many years I got some weird Dorian Gray pass on looking my age, but I think the prolonged diminishment of my once proud 8-9 hour sleep cycle, the college freshman diet and the sheer incessantness of fatherhood are finally knocking that into a cocked hat. My beard has had white in it for quite a few years and now the gray is starting to show up elsewhere ( my temples, my chest and never-you-mind). I’d also like to earn enough disposable income to hire a full-time groomer for my stupid mutant ear-hair. Time spent tweezing one’s earlobes can never be called maximized.
I’m half-way to 92, four years from 50, 14 from 60 and I keep thinking back to how I was supposed to be dead before I hit 21. Don’t feel bad for me, you were supposed to be dead too. Reagan was going to get us all nuked with his stupid Star Wars fantasies so why not have some fun? I’m still not convinced I didn’t see the flash over DC and these past 26 years have all been a big “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”
Anyway in the event this is all real and I am really a middle-aged man with two beautiful kids and a wife who deserves better, I know I need to step up my game and push through this extended stasis I’ve been in.
We’ll begin with honestly trying to put some important stuff into words and if they’re pretty that’ll be a bonus.
Tomorrow (or later today as it should technically be called) I will put down why I finally became an atheist and why it’s more comfort than grief.
Good morning.
