Tuesday, May 3, 2011

And Now, I Disappear

I am going for a walkabout. I am disappearing. I don't know when I will be retuning. It might be a week, a month... maybe longer. I am not sure. I have obligations and I will fulfill them with all of the gusto that is expected and I will provide the best possible service to those that I have promised. This will be part of my recovery.

Life has been like a freight train dragging me along the tracks here of late. I guess it is more like my reaction to life has been more like me trying to stop a freight train with the open palm of my hand and a deep resonating voice commanding it to stop. Needless to say, it doesn't work. The other day, I nearly made a dear friend of mine cry. Now why would I do that? My friend asked me how my job was. I was honest with my friend. My friend's response was a callous, "Cry me a river. I wish I had it that bad." This was in reference to the fact that my friend's job is in retail and my friend would give the soul of their first born for desk job. For some odd reason, my friend's response pissed me off beyond belief. Pissed is too light of a word. It enraged me. Maybe it was because it was the umpteenth time I had heard that type of response. Maybe it was because everyone seems so happy that I am caged in a box, wasting away in a tomb eight hours a day. But I felt like telling this friend to go slowly fuck themself in the ass with a ginsu knife while gargling with a liquid drano and razorblade cocktail. That is not like me, normally, to react this way towards people I actually care about, but that was my honest reaction in my mind. I am just lucky that I held back that I actually controlled myself (it was so difficult it literally hurt), and stuffed that reaction because I do value our friendship. But this tells me that something is definitely wrong with me.

I don't know how to explain how the day job makes me feel other than bad. I don't know how to express the depth of failure I feel, other than I am in a deep grieving morn over it. I don't know how to accept that things are the way they are other than to give up trying. I feel defeated. I don't have the answers my wife wants from me on how to fix myself. I acknowledge that this has been very hard on my wife, I know. I haven't been a happy person in a long time. I haven't been able to smile an honest smile in over a month. I haven't been able to enjoy a single day without a feeling of remorse, regret and utter disappointment in my failure. I spend each day wondering what i could have done differently. I spend each night thinking ugly thoughts.

A short while ago, I wrote a poem called Bad Things and I was asked by an artist friend at one point following that post, who I wrote the poem about. I didn't answer the question then because I didn't want to freak anyone out. Well, I think it is time I answer that question now. I hope that my wife might actually read this, although I doubt it, she doesn't really care about what I write and is so tired of my "art"... she doesn't even pay attention anymore. I don't blame her. So to answer the question that was asked. Bad things was a addressed to me, written to reflect on my personal feelings about how I feel about letting myself, my wife and my dreams down. It was written to review how I felt about my failure. Yes, Bad Things is violent. Yes, Bad Things is disturbing. Yes, Bad Things is brutal. But it reflects honestly about my self-image and self-worth. Bad Things is what I do to myself mentally with each and every day I have to step into the death-cage known as my cubicle. Writing it was theraputic to a point, short-termed, but the self-loathing has not stopped or became magically easier since I put Bad Things on paper. I actually lost a friend over Bad Things. Another friend lectured about the inappropriateness (if that's a word) of having minors a friends on Facebook who might have read it. Bad Things did a lot, but heal me it did not. 

What I can say is that the jobs feels like a vampire. Sitting in my gray walled cubicle in the white walled office space under the crappy quality lights all day sucks my life from me from the moment I get up in the morning until several hours after I get home. I spend each and every day regretting my attempts at follow my dream and this makes each moment in my cavern of dispair a constant reminder of what I did wrong. 1/3 of my lief during the week is spent in a repeating loop of recalling each failed step I took over the last six months. Imagine that. Eight hours a day, living a real life "Ground Hogs Day". Reporting to five bosses each and every day is like having all my teeth pulled, put back in and repeated five times each day. I won't go into too much detail into my mental state, but I think the above "Bad Things" admission says enough. 

It saddens me that those that are closest to me, like my wife and non-artsy friends don't understand this about me and can't seem find an ounce of compassion for what I am experiencing. The lack of compassion definitely helps hold me in this dark and damp tomb I initially put myself in. This is definitely much like something that started as a self-induced exile and now it is being enforced by those around me. This is a very dark and lonely place, but alas it is a place I have created for myself. Therefore I must find a way out of it myself. So for now, I disappear. I am off to walk the scorched Earth of my mind to see if I can heal. If I can, I will be stronger, I am sure. But I don't know if I can at this point, but I will try. See that is how I am. Even if I don't if it is possible, I will try.

So now I walk away. I take my leave. There will be no music. There will be no T.V. There will be no photographs. There will be no blogging. There will be no short-stories. There will be no poetry. There will be no drawing. There will be no distractions. Just me and my thoughts. I will allow my mind to execute Bad Things, as written. I deserve it. We'll see what happens on the other side. I need to find myself again. I need to find my passion. I need to forgive myself and that means first being openly angry wtih myself and I shall do that.

For those that need to reach me (those that I have commitments to), you have my phone number and if you don't have my phone number, email me yours and I will call you back. I plan on fulfilling my commitments to each and every one of you, because you deserve nothing less than that.

[Fade to Black]