Battles on the Homefront

So the first offspring is getting in trouble in school, but what else is new? I wish I could say that the way the boyfriend is dealing with this issue is different, but that's old news too. They just don't like each other, and I'm stuck right in the middle. The boyfriend thinks I need to get tougher with the offspring (as if that were going to do anything) and that he doesn't respect me, and the offspring thinks that the boyfriend is full of shit and doesn't respect me. And honestly, I can see both of their points. When did I become this wimp that everyone could walk over? I wasn't like this before I had kids. I was ferocious. I remember being ferocious. Now I'm just tired.

I don't understand why they can't find some common ground. It tears me in two, really. As sad and pathetic as it is, I do love the boyfriend. And I love the first offspring too, although it seems to be his mission in life to make that as close to impossible as he is able to. And damn if he's not close. But as difficult as he is, I can't stand for the boyfriend to insult him when we're talking about him. It's as if he doesn't think about the fact that the person we're discussing is my child. He says he gets angry because the offspring is hurting me and he doesn't like to see me get hurt, but somehow he can't see that when we have these arguments the things that HE says are hurting me too. I'm guess I'm just the punching bag in the middle of the gym that everyone gets to take a swing at whenever they're feeling a little frustrated.

It's a good thing that my anti-crazy drugs are so stellar. If they weren't I might be dressed up like a chicken right now, walking trying to hold up the sky. At least this way, I'm not dressed like a chicken.

Michael Phelps

Whoo hoo! Eleven gold medals and counting. Do you think he can talk about anything besides swimming?

I wish I were that good at something. I guess if they ever make procrastination an Olympic sport, I could be a contender.

Men's Gymnastics

I was going to Twitter this, but I can't remember my password:

The Olympic finals of men's gymnastics was truly awesome last night. I was holding my breath a couple of times there. Too exciting. And I've never been prouder to see my country get a bronze medal.

I do hope that Michael Phelps wins his tenth gold medal.

Pen and Paper

I go back and forth about whether or not I like keyboarding my thoughts or writing them with pen and paper, but I think I like pen and paper, at least right now. There's something about the feel of a pen (or a pencil, or a crayon, if that what you can get) gliding across the paper that makes me feel more connected. Somehow typing words makes them feel like the thoughts and emotions I'm expressing aren't quite connected to me, and I'm just scattering bits of myself across the Universe.

This could also be another effect of the drugs.

Depression, Drugs, Anger and More About the Boyfriend

Hmm, so where do I start now? Here’s where: Can anti-depressants actually make you more depressed? I don’t know if my new pills are working or if they’re driving me just a little bit closer to a bloody, self-inflicted and unforgivable act of self-termination. I don’t think I’m suicidal in the normal sense thought. I think my anger has gotten so large and uncontrollable that the only place I can direct it any more is at me. And I’m very good at hurting me. I may, in fact, have done my heart permanent damage by stubbornly refusing to take the medication that will prevent it from eventually just blowing up from the pressure of too much crap in my arteries.

I hate my medication. Every pill feels like a failure of will.

I do think the anti-depressants are making me calmer, but I don’t know if I would call this calm a good calm. It’s more like a I’m-tired-and-I-don’t-want-to-get-out-of-bed-today-or-any-day kind of calm. I have the urge to listen to sappy love songs that make me feel bad about my relationship, angry rap that makes me feel bad about society, and indie rock that just makes me feel bad. I wish I could just be an alcoholic or a drug addict, but I don’t have the stamina for that kind of life. I’m too busy trying to figure out a way to please everyone else to please myself. Besides someone has to drop the kid off at daycare.

On the other hand, I’ve decided to start meditating. Supposedly this will make me happier, because meditation occurs in the right brain or something. I don’t know, I don’t really believe it, but I’m going to try it anyway. Because it my duty to keep trying, and a lot of days that’s all I feel like I have left. I’m not even sure I want to be happy any more. Or if I would know who I was if I were. Or even if I would know who I was if I weren’t struggling somewhere in life. I guess I can take comfort in the fact that no matter how good it gets, the kid will always be there to help me be miserable on the parenting front.

And there’s the boyfriend. Who is apparently also clinically depressed and really determined not to do anything meaningful about it. Why does being in love so often turn into a form of psychological torture? It’s the cosmic joke, right? The real punishment for being turned out of Eden. That reference to bringing forth children in pain had nothing to do with the act of birth, it was really talking about all the bullshit you go through in the relationship, before and after the kid. Or regardless of the kid. And since some people chose not to have kids, somebody thought of romance novels, and love songs, and chick flicks so the rest of the relationship-burdened world could be tortured by the concept of happily ever after. It sucks.

And the worst part of it all is that I don’t really know what I want from the boyfriend. Do I just want really good sex? Do I want attention? Do I want achievement? What? Will anything make me happy? And damn him, he asked me why I don’t have any faith in him. And I didn’t even know that I didn’t until he asked that. So now I’m completely tortured by that question. Why DON’T I have any faith in him? And this question: If I don’t have any, why do I still want him in my life so much?

I know part of it. Of course I do. It has to do with the years that he told me over and over that he didn’t want me. With absence, with other women, with anger and rejection, he told me this over and over. And I knew in my heart that it was a lie. I knew this. I had faith that underneath it all I loved him enough to rekindle the feelings I knew were inside him somewhere. And so now he tells me that he loves me. And instead of feeling good about it, instead of feeling vindicated and content with the results of my determination never to give up on him, all I do is wonder if my desire overcame his resistance. I can’t believe in what’s between us because I had to work too hard to get it. I wonder if he’s not sincere. I don’t know how to convince myself that I was right.

Maybe I can’t believe that he can love me, when I’ve never really been able to love myself.

Bathroom Serial Killer

I was just thinking that if I was going to be a serial killer, I would want to pick my targets from someplace really unimaginable, like the public bathroom, or the water fountain in a public park. But I don't think I'm ever going to be a serial killer. Not because I'm not filled with impotent rage and a desire to harm random strangers. Just because I'm too frickin' lazy to do anything that involved. I mean, it takes quite a bit of planning to be a successful serial killer, and if you're going to deliberately launch your life in such a twisted direction, you really owe it to the public to do it well enough so that they'll be entertained when they go to see the movie, right? So no random murdering of strangers for me. I got too much other crap to deal with right now.

Seriously though, I just read this book, "Way of the Pilgrim" which was very entertaining but kind of mired me in this existential question. Could man be happy as the slave of an entirely alien race if they were stronger and taller than we were, more disciplined and more honest?
Or is our xenophobia so genetically ingrained that we would resist alien rule just because they were aliens?

I am so not writing my 10 minutes per day. I might be writing 10 minutes per week if we average it out over the last 2 years. And include every time I filled out a form at the doctor's office, and entered a sweepstakes at the grocery store.

And this wasn't ten minutes either.

I can't sign on to Twitter

So I guess I'll just have to make my random thoughts an official and permanent part of the blog. Lets see:

The boyfriend is out of town. I miss him a little, but I have to say that it's not bothering me nearly as much as it usually does. Probably I shouldn't let him know that though. Is it possible to appear bored and distracted on Skype? He called last night, and I couldn't help but feel like he thought I should be entertaining him, but really I wasn't in the mood.

My room is a mess. A serious, serious mess. Also, I lost my driver's license a couple of days ago, which sucks for so many reasons. It's a good thing I have to renew it this year, or I'd be super annoyed, instead of really annoyed and a little freaked out.

I filed my income taxes, yay for me. Now I just have to catch up on some other crap and I'll be good.

That is such a lie, I'm never good for more than about six weeks. I think I'm addicted to being in trouble. It's become a game to figure out how many safety nets I can find to land in, or bounce out of.

What else?

I dunno, I guess that's all for now...oh, yes, one other thing - I'm supposed to be trying to write for ten minutes every day. Does this count? SURE it does. I don't know if this was ten minutes, but whatever. Something's better than nothing. At least in theory.

Sorry for wasting your time with the drivel.