Options

Given my last post, the Easy Button takes on a whole new meaning.  I'm not ready to press just yet, but d*mn I am so tempted sometimes.  It is of course concerning because I really don't have a tough life.  I am soft and untested.  (Not successfully tested that is, I have failed many such, and I continue to do so.)  When a real test comes along I am afraid I will fold like the proverbial house of cards.

I also mentioned earlier that 1 out of 3 is kind of bad.  Well now it's 0 out of 3.  I am at this very moment munching on crackers not intended to be part of this diet, and swilling coffee with powdered creamer.  (The latter is part of my regular diet but certainly not irreprehensible.)  I suppose that I will start again after the new year.  I actually intend to take several days off (5) and try to relax a bit.  I haven't planned it at all and I really need to do so or else it will turn into a nrop fest leaving me again begging forgiveness and very possibly in front of another censure committee.  A df decision could lead to the death of my surviving parent.  It isn't like Christ with the weight of the world on my shoulders, it is just like me with more than I can carry even though it isn't a heavy load at all.  I continue to be so ashamed of myself.

So there are a number of options, 1) visiting my surviving parent, 2) visiting my house down south, 3) visiting my house way down south, 4) a staycation, 5) a location (local vacation - staying in a hotel near several points of interest) 6) a real vacation.  The latter is likely too expensive especially planned at the last minute such as it is now.  #5 is also pretty expensive especially with the transportation bills I recently incurred.  I visited my surviving parent recently (#1) - a good visit, but it was enough and longer visits become really uncomfortable.  #2 is a must.  That has got to happen but I could make it largely perfunctory and not a working time at all.  I do need to get it ready with phone line and cable.  Just being there is stressful.  #3 is worse still.

Finally I could do a staycation and maybe focus on come clean-up and do something "fun" on 3 or 4 days locally.  The only images that come to mind harken back to the days of my earliest posts.  Not good, very expensive and again in a situation as mentioned in the second paragraph of this post.    So #2 & #4 it is brief visit to my house down south followed by a staycation focusing on 3 fun things and working around the house.  Fun things might include going out to eat or going to a museum.  None seem really doable.  That is affordable and fun enough to actually plan.  I know the feel of this.  Spend a lot of money to have a nice time or spend nothing and waste your time off.  That is what this is boiling down to.  The result is just so d*mn predictable.

Life, it just isn't so easy at all is it.  Hence the label attached to the final option.

Preemptive Strike

I have truly come to hate my life.  Of course any reader knows that.  Again it comes to mind whether it is time to end it all.  I want to kill myself before God does it.  He doesn't promise a peaceful death for those he executes.  He just gets the job done.  I suppose I don't deserve a peaceful death.  There is no dignity in death like this.  I suppose there is dignity when you die like Christ, with the weight of the world on your shoulders but with success.  When as one of your last acts you direct your friend to see to your mother welfare and when you solemnly entrust your departing spirit to God's hand confident that you have accomplished his will.

You don't have to be perfect either.  You can die like my mother, surrounded by loving family.  Confident that you have done God's will to the best of your ability.  Simply enduring until the end.

No, not me.  I die a coward.  Ashamed that I failed to carry out God's will, that I performed so poorly that my sick wife left me and my daughter left not just me but the God I tried (weakly) to teach her about.  Of course she saw my own hypocrisy and  imitated it, resulting in her own failures.

She told me that she had a pleasant dream this morning where a number of people at school heard lots of good and positive things about the religion.  For the first time in forever I felt like she had hope to really return to God.  I remembered that I cannot recall for 10 + years having a good dream.  It is all just a struggle for survival.  It isn't like so many in foreign lands, living in a jungle, chasing rats for food, sweltering in the heat of day and/or shivering in the cold.  I have food, clothing, shelter, a congregation (which on some level is loving.)  I have no excuse for my present ills.  Normal people would look at me and say something like:  "Get off your buttox and do something you lazy moron!"  and they would be right in every point:

1. I am on my butt,
2. I am lazy,
3. I am doing nothing and
4. I am a moron (well maybe not technically but I certainly act foolishly which was the intended spirit of the imagined comment.)

Helium is the method of choice.  Party City is the source.  It is expensive and I don't really know if I am ready.  But I don't want to wait until I need it and then not have access.  It's a bad idea all around.  No question.  It is just that I am such a coward, Helium seems like the easiest way out.

Anti Meatloaf

Off the exercise wagon, off the spiritual study wagon.  Still eating right. 2 out of 3, Hmmm that's kind of bad.

Actually I know I am judging myself harshly.  But this is how it always starts.  There is a really good (sort of) reason.  I had some work that really needed to get done.  So I didn't study this AM and didn't exercise either.

I did pick up snacks for work (it was my turn to do so) and have thus far declined to consume any of the fattening treats I purchased for my colleagues.

Not so bad right,  Didn't exercise this morning, well, OK.  Didn't study much this week (umm, well that's troubling but not necessarily an indication of doom.) However, this is how it alwaysstarts.  Some reasonable reason, a "normal" excuse.   And boom, I stop studying, stop exercising, before long stop going to church and as surely as night follows day, I start eating like a pig again.

Now at this point, I have to figure out what to do so that that pattern doesn't repeat.  Pray?  Well that's an excellent idea.  Take a memo to do so as soon as I finish this post (we'll see right?)

Schedule -  OK fine been there, done that.

Ask for help?  -- Ask who?  No one cares except those who can't help.  I have no friends.

Ask the Elders?  Really!!?? and have them stare back at me and say "What do you want us to do?"  I don't mean to make fun of them.  (Actually I suppose I do although i have to acknowledge in the same breath that they are probably doing their very best to help.)

Hmmm, prayer sounds best.  I'll let you know, gentle reader (if there are any such,) how that works out.  It occurs to me that there was just recently an article on prayer I studied for this week's services on prayer.  Maybe I can think of some pointers from that as I finish the studying.

So I have prayed a couple of times, but, of course no answer can reasonably be expected in an abundantly apparent fashion.  It has to be sustained and over a long period of time before you slowly start noticing some improvement in "things" in general.  Most people, including me, really want a more immediate feedback.  But there is simply enough evidence that I can read about that it works.  I just need to swallow my skepticism and make do like the bible, and hence God tells me to do.
-----

On another note I am supposed to go over to my Ex's place to help her hang a shelf tonight.  She is DF so I shouldn't do it, but, as I said, I have no friends and could use a little human interaction (see earlier post on the subject.)

So I went over hung the shelf and talked another hour, kissed and left.  And that's my allotment for HI (Human Interaction) for another month or so.

Eat Right, Exercise Right, Be Spiritual

 

So as of the last post I was thoroughly disgusted with my recent failures, as any long term reader would realize is typical.  Eating too much, not smart enough, not spiritual enough.  Today I can say that yesterday was not so bad in all but a secular way.  I went to church, I exercised and I ate well.

I reset my spreadsheet to track spiritual and food progress.  Maybe one day I will add exercise, but I am not too worried about that.  The spiritual issues are by far the most important.  The food problem (I eat too much of it) is the thing that I find particularly disgusting in myself.  I am nearing another peak weight.  My clothes don't fit right now.  This makes my appearance slovenly.

I keep trying the same solutions hoping for a different result.  I did have some success with the weight problem using the spreadsheet about 18 months ago.  So it isn't such a long shot.  I also exercised regularly about 8 years ago.  I went to meetings regularly about 12 months ago.  Now I just need to put all these things together and possibly they will start to reinforce one another.

That leaves out the financial and material mess I am in.  And oh by the way, it's not like the food, exercise and spiritual problems will be solved by the plans I am putting in place.  More work is needed there as well.  Overall it is quite a hopeless situation, but I can't just throw up my hands and stop trying.  I actually tried that about 8 months ago.  I figured F*ck it.  I am just going to do what I want.  I did quite a lot of damage to my spirituality but I just wouldn't throw over the big things.  So now I am back, trying to resolve those things, and yes it is just as difficult as it always was.

Another SOC Post

I am feeling better about myself because I worked out for the last 3 days.  Big whoop!  Well it really is if this is the start of something new and permanent.  I can't know that now, but this I know, every time I have started something like this in the past it peters out to nothing after a few days, weeks or, at most, months.  I just cannot keep up any good routine. I guess it is worth continuing to try rather than giving up totally, yet and still again.

I do like the way I feel afterward.  Sometimes I feel like I can't lift my arms or walk up a flight of stairs, but I feel good like I have done something worthwhile.  I suppose this is an idea of what it feels like after a weak JW does some rare Field Service.  I won't know that feeling for quite some time.

The other thing this getting up early so I can work out does is to make me sleepy during the day.  I just don't get as much rest as otherwise.   I should be able to fix that by going to bed sooner.  It has the added benefit of reducing the time spent at home with the munchies.  I am just desperate to loose weight.  I am, obviously, more desperate for comfort food throughout any given day.  Another reason IHMS.  I need to spend maybe just a few minutes a day looking at my fat body in the mirror each morning just to remind myself of why I want to lose pounds.  Then when the moments of temptation occur (such as it is now,) I have a better chance to resist.  I just need to give myself time to call the image to mind and my own disgust.

And now it's Monday and the weekend was awful.  Wasteful and indulgent on multiple levels.  The only good thing is that I went to the meetings. I ate virtually all day Saturday and half the day on Sunday that I wasn't eating.  I didn't work-out as I intended.  As a matter of fact I didn't work out at all.  Another day in depression IRRHMS.

And now Tuesday - a bright spot as this is the 5th week day in a row that I worked out.  It is hard to get up early enough to get here in time, but as a matter of fact I have done so a few days in a row.  Who knows how long this will last.  My best guess is another week or two.

I dreamed of an old quasi girlfriend last night.  She wore a blue cotton nightie and we almost had relations, but not quite.  Her night wear  were incongruous with what I imagine she would wear in real life.  I recall in my dream looking twice and thinking that her attire wasn't as nice as I would have imagined she would wear.  There must be some meaning in that.   As thinking about it driving in I reflected on the fact that I will never be with a woman I love or even admire for years to come.  It is sad to me but my fate is still superior to some and it could be the most one could hope for, if I would just do God's will.  But that just isn't happening.

Oh the name?  "Stream of Consciousness" for those unimaginative and a little slow, such as myself on a really good day.

Cowardice

I worked out this morning for the first time in 8 years (about.)  What a fool I am to have skipped such a vital part of a healthy lifestyle for so long.  I hope I will keep it up, but I really doubt it since I can never keep p any good habit.

I missed lunch today but more than made up for it eating nuts throughout the day.  At one point I though that if I worked out I could eat like I wanted.  I put in all the correct numbers into the elliptical trainer and discovered that in my workout this morning I had burned enough calories to cover the Hershey's chocolate bar I had for breakfast yesterday.  Didn't cover all the X-mas cookies someone brought into work that I have been snacking on voraciously.

I feel like this is hopeless, but I've given up for so long, I just need to pick myself up off the floor and try again, as hopeless as it seems.  If there were a neat (and destructive) alternative that at least promised some small happiness, I would probably jump at the chance.  That never seems to happen though, and when it does, I screw it up.

It has always been a long held but totally distant dream (similar to dreaming of winning the lottery big) that I would sit beside a pretty female on a plane trip and strike up a conversation that turns into something.  When I would travel during college and early years of professional life I would think about it nearly every time I boarded a plane.  The one or two times that someone pretty was seated in easy conversation range, I didn't know what to say and ended up ignoring her (didn't want her to know how incompetent I was.)

So about 5 years ago, long after I had quit thinking about it, it finally happened.  The gal was very pretty but not "high maintenance" pretty.  I started by saying hello and noticed a positive and engaging "hello" in return.  "Good sign" I thought.   Normally I would freeze up but it was still early and I hadn't yet gauged that she was in-fact very cute and slim, both characteristics I really like.  So I was lucid enough to ask if she was headed home or headed out (I know it was a dumb, pathetic line.)  She was headed home as was I (something in common.)  We chatted about where we each lived in the metro area and then where we were from and then a little bit about family and occupation.  We had actually engaged in conversation before the normal freeze up took place.

Then something truly amazing happened, as the discussion on one topic petered out, she took the initiative to bring up some additional topics.  (I know this sounds normal to most guys but this almost never happened to me before.)  With a few brief, and not uncomfortable pauses in the conversation we literally talked from Oakland to DC.  But then, as always happens, I screwed up.  Being so inexperienced, I hadn't asked for her full name.  I knew this as we got close but couldn't think of/bring myself to ask before we landed and parted ways.  I really thing she would have given me her digits.  What a freaking idiot I am.

I actually searched for her on the basis of her employment (USG, urban search & rescue), hobby (singing with a piano player in clubs) and location Arlington, but I never found her again.  I didn't deserve to. The only solace was that I know it would have been one of the worst things I could have done to keep being a good Christian.  That was good, but I certainly felt really bad about it.  I still look back on that whole episode as an example of extreme cowardice on my part.  I am very ashamed of that episode in my life (as I am of so many others.)

Armageddon (Trivial Reference)

To some degree (probably a lot larger than I realize) this blog is making me self absorbed.  Why would I think anyone cares about my private suffering.  I suppose, actually this is just for me.  It isn't really.  I actually pay attention to the page view count.  I want someone else to read this, so there's that.  I do notice that by an order of magnitude (literally) the pages most popular are the ones where I am talking about hiring an escort.  So on my humble blog established (ostensibly) for me to engage in a bit of self healing by articulating my deepest concerns, I have managed to attract sex zombies trolling the web for material with which to titillate themselves.

So what is my self absorbed and titillating self thinking about today?  Actually I am feeling tapped out.  Tired of trying to make progress only to fall flat on my face.  I say I want to be a good Christian, but I fail at every turn.  I have asked for help from the deacons (actually elders, but the average reader would understand the meaning of deacons better) but to no avail.  I guess I could go back, grab them by the lapels and shake until they pay attention and realize how much I am hurting.  But that would probably be a bit much. I am too proud I suppose to continue to beg for help.  That isn't a good trait.  Jesus made the gentile woman beg for table scrap even after he made reference as though her request was coming from little dogs.

Even so it would be like:  Listen to what I already told you!  Think of something more creatively than just asking me what I want you to do.  You are the rescue workers.  You tell me how you can help.

Yea, doesn't sound like a good Christian discussion; I'll just plan to die at Armageddon if not sooner.

Cattywampus

My diet is going to hell now.  I haven't updated my tracking sheet in over a week.  I just pigged out in a major way over lunch today and I ate a big (500 cal) midmorning snack.  I can feel my stomach stretching from the huge lunch portion I consumed.

I am so freaking ashamed of myself. I have no excuse for my actions.  I have no self control to speak of.  So I just got finished with the weekend and it is a shameful mess.  I feel the need for fast for another 3 weeks until the new year.  But, of course I don't have the ability.  I will just have to keep trying (and hoping for a different outcome than before) which is, of course, insane.

There are a few basics I can depend on.  I have goals:

1. Be a good Christian
1. Study
2. Meetings
3. Prayer
4. Service
2. Take Care of myself physically
1. Loose Weight
2. Exercise
3. Take care of myself (and others as needed) fiscally
1. Work hard and feel good about the work I do (if possible)
2. Conduct myself in a fiscally responsible manner
4. Be a good Father
5. Take care of the things in my purview
1. Home
2. Auto
3. Other
6. Entertainment for the sake of Sanity and Continued Productivity

And the goals/responsibilities are so many that I just can't seem to deal with it all.

The ability to shake myself free seems impossible.

I am not making this I am failing.  It is like I need a friend to come along and work beside me to get stuff done.  To give me the encouragement to keep going.  This friend does not seem to exist.  If he does, I wouldn't ask for fear of taking his time from more important things.  I don't have any real friends to speak of.  I had a friend or two before.  But I didn't know what I had and didn't cultivate that friendship.

More Self Hate

So I am just a piece of excrement unceremoniously extruded from a dog's anus.  I am all grown up and now I am growing old.  When I was young, I thought I was some hot shit.  I have now come to realize that I am nothing more than a steaming pile.

There was a company "thing" recently (typical this time of year.)  No one seemed to want to talk to me.  Yes I was late and all the tables were taken.  No one with an excuse to do something else would acknowledge me.  I wasn't totally ignored when I broke into a couple of conversations.  It was telling though when shortly after breaking into a conversation with two other people, they both decided they needed to get something to eat, leaving me standing alone.

Something weird is going on at church.  About one per meeting, someone is speaks to me.  Not engaging in conversations but at least they say something.  I can't tell if this is a change in their attitude fundamentally or if it is because my kid started coming to the meetings with me. Everyone used to like my kid.  But once my kid was kicked out for breaking the rules then people stopped talking to me as well.  That doesn't totally explain it though.  My kid was coming with me to church for several weeks.  That all went to crap though. what worries me about the current situation is that I really believe it will stop soon enough.  It always has in the past.  This never lasts.

I have begun to really loathe my situation, who I am, what hangs over me.  I just want this to be over, but it won't end.  And when the end does come it will be slow and painful and embarrassing and humiliating.  I just can't get up, can't climb out, can't move hardly at all.  And when God finds me in that position he is going to know that I really could have done better and to the best of my ability to understand his expectations and the consequences of their failure, he will kill me.

Diet and Death

I'm into this diet for a few weeks now.   It is officially "on."  In other words I am taking it seriously but, as usual as soon as I get comfortable that it is working, it stops working.  A year or more ago I had started a diet like this in April and it lasted, for the most part, until Thanksgiving at which point I let it go totally.

I have discovered I have a major problem with nuts.  I can't have them around and I have stopped trying to overcome that temptation.  I just don't buy them anymore.  I have also taken to largely fasting during the work day.  When I have a lot of meetings, this provides enough of a distraction that I am not as bothered by the hunger.

Anyway I am sensing that this has an adverse affect on my thinking.  The brain uses carbs to restore its ability to make decisions.  I am finding myself coasting more (mentally speaking) and so I decided to get lunch today.  I did find that the much smaller food portions of late have shrunk my stomach and I couldn't even finish a small "plate" of sushi roll.  (Good for me!)

I need to get back to work though. It was really discouraging to find that the last corporate management change over is not working out well.  The new management team wants short term results.  No real understanding of the market we are in.  To them we are just another construction company, as though Health Care is just another business.

I am going to the meeting tonight.  I am excited and tense about it.  I always hate going, as any faithful reader of this blog can't help but note.

I think the motivation for this diet, (I have been trying to loose weight for decades) came from me really studying myself in the mirror and being thoroughly disgusted with what I see.  I have long known that I am fat, but I didn't see it for a long time. I kept looking at myself from the front.  Several years ago I looked at myself from the side and saw how big I look.  It took several additional years to work through the denial but I now know beyond doubt that I am fat, and how to take meaningful action to address the issue.  Of course there was the motivation to do so and, at least for the moment, I have enough to continue.  So much more to the story but I am sure I've exhausted my readers' (presuming there are any such) attention.

I really wanted to talk about death in this post.  It is sneaking closer.  I can feel it and smell it but it isn't as obvious as it typically is.  I think that I will be soon in a life and death struggle in my own head.  I suppose I usually am as I struggle to do God's will in the severely limited and stilted way that I do.  That is certainly life and death enough.

It is coming closer in a more tangible way as I wrestle with the final/ultimate solution.  I think I am getting exhausted with the hurting and the problems looming over my head.  I just "can't" handle that.  Now that the company is going down for another dip into the viability meter "Danger" hash marks, I may just check out.  The really wild thing is that the new owners are just making these bloodthirsty screams for profits and yet they know next to nothing about the market this company serves.

The Trap

Well, the kid moved  back in this weekend.  The drama was mild but certainly there.  Her insurance is almost cancelled on her car and I don't want her driving it around.  She agreed.  And then when she left for work today, she drove off in her uninsured car.

God loves me but I don't recognize my perception of it very poignantly now.  I feel like I am still an enemy of God, as I was labeled by my censuring committee.  I keep repeating the God will kill me soon.  And why not.  I know what he wants and I refuse to do it.  I don't tell others about his expectations and the benefits of ceding to them.  I don't like being with his people.

I went to the first "Sunday" service in months and it felt good because I wasn't surrounded by the congregation about which I would ordinarily be.  It felt much better.  Less stressful.  Anyway it is an awful time I am going into now.  I hate what I am presented with and I wish I could just end it all.  The final solution is looking pretty good now.  It isn't like I am really suffering much.  I am a typical spoiled american.  I am not hungry, my family wasn't killed by rebels in front of my own eyes.  I am now aware of any horrid disease that will leave me crippled and/or without sound mind.  I am simply  distressed about my abject refusal to serve God.  Why would I be this way.  I know Jehovah God to be a good and loving individual.  But the standards he sets are so very high, it seems impossible for me to reach them.  It isn't though, with his help even I could (presuming there is enough time to do so.)  Apparently, I just don't want it.

I seem to want what Satan offers more:  the "temporary enjoyment of sin."  I feel I am missing something by not having some of that sin.  But the more I have indulged in the sin the more bitter my life, and the more sin I want.  I see the trap, I examine the fine quality of its construction, I see (at least at some level) how it works.  I know the way out and yet I am still captured thereby.  This is one fine device.  When the victim can see it, figure it out, understand its workings and yet I remain clutched.

Damocles

So I paused over the title but, as is customary, I moved to the blog input box and just started typing.  As usual.  I'll figure out the title when I'm done.  In case anyone hasn't figured out, this is just the blog of a deeply disturbed individual who finds writing down his troubles to be somewhat calming.


Deeply disturbed is correct, but not as depressed as oh, say a year ago at this time.  It has been a long struggle to come up from the mire of depression.  The journey continues.  I am not well.  I still consider the ultimate solution but not with the seriousness and the propensity to act as once existed not so long ago.  Fear not, dear reader,  I am not a deeply disturbed violent criminal; or maybe to some of you that is a disappointment.  I am just a man fighting for his sanity.

It is a week later and in the interim my child of twenty something years has asked to move back home.  This is good news since I am falling apart.  He or she is worth living for to try to help.  Myself, well not so much.  I took a couple of days off, Monday and Tuesday of this week.  I intended to use it as a time to go to my other house and do a little much needed maintenance.  Instead I sat around eating and watching TV all 3 days.  Thankfully there was a need to be back at work early and I didn't spend the 4th day as such.

I went to "the meeting" what I call going to church.  For cryin' out loud for this audience (such that it is,) why don't I just say "I went to church?".  Ok, so, I went to church this week.  It was not any special meeting just the typical mid week service.  I resist going because everyone is so happy and cheerful.  The congregation censured me earlier imposing restrictions on my activity therein for the last 7 or 8 years so I can go but am not supposed to engage in certain of the activities.

I don't fit in there (really I don't fit in anywhere,) and my attendance is usually coming into the sanctuary with about 60 seconds prior to the meeting start.  I usually walk up the aisle next to the wall and sit on the far left side (as out of the way as possible.)  This time that aisle was clogged with people chatting happily amongst themselves.  so I had to walk up the more heavily populated (but wider so there was room to pass) left center aisle.  I passed the chief on my censorship committee and he did the customary "Hi, howyadoin' greeting"  I shook his hand but really wanted to just get past him.  I don't mind trying to make friends, it is just that these people just want make an appearance, a show of friendship.  It is supposed to be something more, but then, I am supposed to love God.  They aren't the problem, I am.  I was rightfully censured and probably should have been expelled.

I just hate what this is all about, but it is like having a tooth pulled.  You have to go through a whole lot of intense pain, but you are better off in the end.  I just feel like there is a ton of bricks (in actuality, it is the IRS) hanging over my head and ready to drop.  It might not be so bad if it fell all at once and I die not knowing what hit me.  But they (the bricks or the IRS depending on how literally you want to take this) will descend slowly.  I will see the pain and feel the crushing weight and watch/feel/smell the life being crushed out of me.

Decision Fatigue

So I heard/read an article recently that indicated that the brain can actually get tired of making decisions and as the fatigue sets in, the quality of our decisions decreases.  There are some perverse consequences.  The poor for example may experience decision fatigue while shopping and end their shopping trip with a stop by a fast-food restaurant.  The rich who go along filling their shopping carts without much of a second thought pass the (often in-store) restaurant looking down their noses at those poor people making such an unwise spending decision. If the tables were turned, however and those rich had just experienced the mental exercises of trying to get the most value from very limited funds, they may find themselves making the same or worse financial decisions.

I have long noticed (as I suppose many others have) that meetings in which I am an active participant are very tiring.  It used to be very exhausting until I grew accustomed to days with several meetings in each.

The research on the subject is clear and verified.  It is not my imagination.  It reminds me of the constant pressure from the "organization" to simplify my life.  I always figured that I could just handle it.  I know what the hell I'm doing.  I'm just more capable than the rest, so I thought.  In reality I am more stupid for not following that advice.  Each and every time I think I know better I am proved so totally freaking wrong.  What an idiot I have come to realize that I have been all these years.

Big sigh, so what else is new.  I remember feeling the crushing weight of the realization of my mistakes a few years ago, Was it 5, 7, 3 years ago?  I don't really remember.  I do recall that deep and burning shame, anger (with myself) and deep disappointment when I understood that I had totally wasted my life, that now I am old and the doors are almost all closed.  It still hurts, though living with that disappointment for years now, I feel the pain less acutely than then.  It is there though.  What a screw-up I am.

I keep hoping that something will break loose one day.  And it doesn't.  So I just carry on day by day.  Things are all to shit and I don't see a way out of it.  The ultimate solution seems logical from tactical viewpoint.  Strategically I know it doesn't make sense.  Oh yes and it's wrong.  So I just carry on day by day.

Music

So, I have to listen to music all the time now.  I can't work without it.  It seems as though the music quells some region in my brain that interferes with my ability to focus on any given task.  It seems almost like I have ADD (from an uneducated layman's perspective.)  Basically I think of a task and then think of a dozen other things that are tangentially related to that task (or to a task tangential to the original.)  It usually takes a good bit of time to organize all the tasks I think I need to do and then pull out one focus on that and get it done. 

When music is playing in the background (as it is now) I seem to be able to focus and carry out what I need to do.  Symphonic Goth Metal is my genre of choice.  Epica, Evanescence and Within Temptation are all my favorites.  I was even looking into flying to Europe for the release event of the latest Epica album.  Fortunately it only took several minutes to come to my senses and stop.  There are still dendrils (for you Asimov fans) pointing in that direction.

I go back and forth closer and farther from the ultimate solution.  Right now it seems to be receding from thoughts but with a solution nowhere close and continued frustration about my unwillingness to return to God, I know it is never far from consciousness.  I stop several times a day to grasp my head and emote over my desperation.  But there seems to be nothing I am capable of doing.  Professional help is just so expensive.  And I desperately hate insurance companies.

Physical Mental Spiritual

I have a diet in place now.  I don't know how long it will last.  The last time I got this far it ended up lasting for several months. I broke it over Thanksgiving.  I just couldn't sit around the house and not eat.

A new gym room will be available soon. Interested to see if I take advantage of it.  I really had a good thing going when I exercised before in the mornings, but that went by the wayside when my job got crazy.  That was 8 years ago. I look at myself in the mirror now and I am totally embarrassed by what I see.  Beyond the physical I am a mental and spiritual mess. 

I have to conclude that I am not fit for the organization God is using for his servants on earth.  I haven't managed to squash that small flame of hope that maybe one day some way some how I'll get myself turned around and headed in the right direction. I really think that, given enough time that may happen again, and possibly again, and still again.  The trouble is that is keeps happening, because I keep failing.  And each time the amount of time between the last and next try is exteneded.

The time that I am serious gets shorter such that no one even notices the blips on the radar.  They are just lost in the noise.  I really don't know what to do anymore.  I feel like I have been falling a very long way and now I can make out the people on the ground and know the general place I will impact.  There are specific regions on which I might land that have a lot of variability, but a lot of variability is gone.  I probably won't die of a drug overdose or in a knife fight.  But I may off myself with pills.  I won't be overcome with options of the rich and famous  and die crashing my Ferrari, but I might find my end inhaling helium.

I am having trouble focusing again.  I can't work anymore.  I just sit overwhelmed by the tasks in front of me.  I want to retreat into my shell.  I just can't take this anymore.

IHMS IHMS ISFHMS

I laid down to go to bed early tonight.  It is a bad weekend.  I decided to get some exercise this weekend rather than the usual sit-around-and-watch-TV Saturday and Sunday.  So I walked into town (about 5 miles) with the intent of having a coffee at the local shoppe.  The place was so crowded that I walked in took a look around and then walked back out.  I did get a box of office supplies as I intended and then turned around and walked back home.  So it ended up being a 10 mile hike but I wasn't up to that and over did it.  It left me over tired and sore and then on Sunday I just didn't fire up the moxie to get to the meeting.  And again, I fail to do God's will.  So I'll try again Tuesday, but I know I'll probably fail there again.  I just cannot seem to do God's will but I would if I just would.  God doesn't put hurdles too high for us to overcome.  He would open his arms and welcome me back to the fold if I would just do what he asks.

Is it someone else's fault?  Well I seem to want it to be; but it isn't.  Of course there are a whole host of people that share in the blame.  But one thing I can be absolutely sure of, is that God didn't put anything in front of me that I couldn't handle.  I could have; should have handled it all; with his help of course.  But instead of turning to him in prayer and sincerely asking for his help, and then following up with actions that demonstrated the fact that I was willing to follow his instructions I failed in one or both of these tasks; and a whole host of other things to numerous to mention.

I talk to the "brothers" about this occasionally whenever the CO is about show up and they want to prove that they are trying to help the lost souls that were once associated with the congregation.  Of course the fact that they only reach out when he comes a callin' makes me believe that their assistance is not sincere.  And I have no friends.  No one at all.  the "brothers" took DC away.  That was a good move since there is no way I could have kept seeing her and not ended up copulating.  I am just glad that happened.  I would have really messed things up.  It just seems so unfair.  I really tried to stay with the organization.  I went to meetings.  I admitted my mistakes when they happened.  As a result I get kicked in the teeth and pushed to the curb.

I still have this image from the last time I attended the meeting.  I stopped looking at people because they continually look away.  I did this last time.  I saw this woman with an extremely pained look on her face.  Eyes closed and head shifted away.  It is like she just didn't want to see me.  One day I went to the meeting when the topic of the discussion was welcoming one another at the meetings (and other places.)  I think 4 women said "hi" and one was really nice about it.  She walked over from the other side of the sanctuary, spoke and shook my hand.  That was really nice of her.

No men speak to me.  They just keep their distance and pretend like I am not there.  It is crystal clear watching it happening.  I didn't think it would mess with my head so much, but it is not too much for me to overcome with God's help.

So I am really glad that DC got the waive-off.  I am not around to ruin her life.  Unfortunately that leaves me with absolutely no one.  Yes there is family, but they put me on a pedestal that is just too painful to endure.   So I sit at home almost every weekend.  With way too much to do, but with the prospect of being along all weekend which is simply debilitating.   So I watch TV, nearly the whole time.  I don't like what I watch but I can't seem to do any better.  My place is a real mess.  Totally disorganized and a really freaking mess, but I simply refuse to fix this.  I hate myself for not fixing it, for not getting the help I need, for screwing up virtually every aspect of my life.  And I know, as well as one can in my state, that the end of this is death at God's hand.  He will not let me into his organization.  And why should he?  I have chosen not to do his will or to obey his laws again, and again, ad infinitum.

I suppose the right thing to do is to talk to the "brothers."  I have done this so many times before.  I don't know what to say to them.  So many times I tell my story and they say words that just don't help.  I am convinced they are doing enough.  If God meant for them to do more they would have, and if they refused the stones would cry out, (in a manner of speaking.)  So that just leaves me.  I am the bad person here, the one that needs to be cleared away.  I need to wipe my existence from the face of this earth.  I have my plan.  I know what to do.  I just don't have the fortitude to carry it out.

I am such a coward.  I hate myself.  I so much want the pain to go away, but there are no "angels" who handle this kind of thing in the way they once may have done so in the Bible.  Yes they do exist but whey are there for God's true servants.  The ones that may really need his help.  Me, I am just ridiculous.  I hate myself so very much.  And so, apparently, do most other people.

Occasionally days like today come along, when the pain is so deep I can feel it like a smoldering burning in my chest.  I can't move or function.  It makes my chest heavy and I almost feel like it is hard to breathe.  I try to think of alternatives, other things I could do to fix this situation, and I come up with nothing.  Everything I think of is too hard, or just wrong, or just wouldn't help anything at all.  Now I think my chances are well under 50:50.  I imaging I have a 25% chance of surviving Armageddon.  Honestly, that's probably way too high.

I could see hanging out in this world if I was having fun.  If there was something to look forward to.  But the world hurts me.  It kicks me in the head, it slaps me in the face and kicks me around like I was a soccer ball.  At times it seems like I am being toyed with and laughed at.  It hurts like hell and yet I keep coming back for more.  Why I don't go running back to God is just too difficult for me to fathom.  I just feel like a blithering idiot.  God and true happiness, this world and deep, intense pain.  I can't fix this.  Only God can, and I am too stupid to ask him.  And on those few occasions when I do ask, I won't follow through on what he wants me to do.

Too Much To Overcome

I am feeling overwhelmed again.  I visited my house and there is a huge volume of work needed there.  I have a giant the IRS looming over my shoulder wanting hundreds of thousands of dollars from me.  I just can't carry on.  This hurts and the pain isn't going away.  I am cut and damaged.  There isn't a way out.  I am suspicious any time I am feeling a little bit good, because I know it is only temporary.  The truth of my awfulness will eventually come flooding back to my real and conscious mind.  It just makes everything worse.

I want it to all end, but I can't make that happen.  I am too much of a coward to take the final solution.  I feel like I am being dragged behind a truck.  fast enough to keep up with running, but too fast for me to be able to keep up the pace for much longer if at all.  I stumble and misstep, while am not having the skin ripped from my body by asphalt, I just know it wont' be long before that happens.

How the image of nice things holds for more than a nanosecond in my mind is amazing.  I just can't believe my mind even goes there.  God, I hate what I have become.  I wish I had never left you.  But that option was closed 35 years ago.  Shit, has it been that long?  Actually, it has been a few years longer.  When one of those famous deep space probes turned around and photographed the earth, it showed just how insignificant the globe is in the grand scheme of things.  Now I think of myself on that globe and I realize that I am less than nothing.  Just a molecule in a glass of water, in a little town, in the country, in the world, in the solar system, in the galaxy, galaxy cluster, known universe.

I don't want to be bad, I want to be good, but I can't seem to be successful, and it seems like it doesn't matter now.  God moves on when individual servants fail him.  He will not have his will paused by someone stupid like me, nor should he.  God what can I do anymore.  It seems like just nothing.

Human Interaction

So I did see the woman last weekend and spent all day Saturday there.  Then she comes over on Sunday and says to me that the Brothers told her I shouldn't be seeing her at all.  She's right, I never should have started.  I wanted to reach out for some human companionship and that was my outlet.  Not it's gone.  No Humans Allowed for me; I suppose it would be ok to communicate with aliens.

It is getting bad now.  I don't know why I am thinking about my problems all the time; the cloud is coming back.  I hate myself.

I went to the meeting last night.  It was as bad as I remember.  People look down and away when I walk past or they pretend they don't see me.  I have to do something different but I don't know what to do.  Maybe if I could figure out how to use them to get what I need.  Like a study partner to bounce ideas around.  It would be easier and simpler if I just ended it all.  And the remaining world would be a better place.  I mean really who am I kidding, certainly not God.  I'm never going to get this right.  And even if I did for some period of time, it won't last long before I stumble over some minor or major issue Satan throws in my path.  She needn't even be all that pretty.  Hell, she needn't be real.

It won't be long before the self hate is waking me up at night.  I look forward to sleep where I can "forget about life for a while."  I plunge myself into work so I don't have to think about my crap life.  Not that life is crap, it can be wonderful.  It is just that what I made of my life is crap.

Stuck

So I got this new computer.  It works mostly but the external monitor connection is broken.  Instead of the rush to fix, I am just taking it on the chin.  Oh well I say.  It works mostly.  I just can't fight the problems anymore.  My first thought, after denial, anger, depression, acceptance, is to buy another one.  Damn, what a sap I have become.  I truly hate what I am.

Oh well another crap day ahead.  I just have to suck it up and get urinated upon by the people in this job.  I truly hate it.  I just can't get out of the way or even raise a hand to block the stream. 

The woman wants me to come over this weekend.  I probably will.  Not because I enjoy the punishment of being with someone like that.  it is because I cannot stand the loneliness of being without anyone.  It is like eating food laced with poison.  After a while you just get so hungry, you know it is killing you but you do it anyway.  And, to keep the analogy alive, the perfectly healthy food is just sitting right there, ready for consumption.  However you eschew that banquet because it all tastes awful.  But there really isn't anything wrong with the food, it is just the witches brew I am drinking now makes healthy food taste awful. 

I just have to stiffen my resolve and start going to the meetings.  But then it's not "just."  It is an extremely difficult thing to do.  Being surrounded by people all happily chatting and having a wonderful time, while I sit there with no one willing to talk to me is just too difficult to manage.  I am the oil and the congregation is aqueous.  We don't mix.  Again it's my fault.  I truly hate myself.  I am fat, old and ugly.  I have bad teeth and red eyes.  I disgust myself.  I just can't keep this up.

The Bitch is Back

So, I wrote the last post a couple of weeks ago.  This one is more of the same I guess.  I am getting more involved with my ex-wife.  We are dating again, not out of direct intent, it is just that I have no one else that seems to want to talk to me and she is willing so .  .  .  I am not in love with her anymore.  But she represents companionship where otherwise I have none.  Hence the draw. 

I understand, know (as well as one can, these things) that I should not see her anymore.  But we consistently have to be together to deal with our children gone wild.  And that interaction has led to further discussion and dating.

The additional contact has led me to see that she can be very nice, but that she still has an ugly side.  Instead of saying what she wants she manipulates me to offer what she wants so that she doesn't have to ask.  She wants to be her own self, make up her own mind and spend her own money, and she wants a sexual partner as well.  All fine by me if I wasn't trying to be a good Christian.  I don't think I will ever want to marry this woman again.  However I am a lonely old fat man and I don't resist the temptation to see her.

I still spend every morning and evening reviewing why I hate myself.  Of course when I review why God will kill me in the near future it validates my self hate.  When I reflect on the fact that God has given me everything I need for a happy and wonderful life and I took what he provided and rejected it, I feel even more intense frustration and hate.  And what puts me over the top is that all I need to do is turn back go God and he will forgive me and take me back (if it isn't already too late.)  That just chaps me right past the limits of endurance.  I really hate this.

One Step Forward . . .

Sliding back into the muck of depression isn't a pretty thing to watch.  You struggle, rationalize, watch mistakes happening feeling powerless to stop them.  Now I am watching my body stretch into grotesque shapes as I see the results of my attempts to calm my mind with food.  The words of others just seem like infantile babbling.  I reach to the old stand-by for solving problems; I try to think them through.  It just accelerates the downward spiral as I see the interconnects that make the issues seem so intractable.  I think of the mistakes I made in the past that have lead to such a miserable life.  It is not like I am a poor hungry child of warfare.  They can't help themselves.  More like a fat and spoiled brat addicted to money.

I think about the mistakes I made that led to bad decisions of my children and realize that I share huge responsibility for their demise.  All of them!  I am sick at heart, ugly to God and deserve nothing but death at his hand.  I listen to myself and Satan instead of that which few people have the chance to hear clearly,  What an idiot I am.

And I know it will get worse.  I am a coward and cannot stand the impending doom.  I am under shadow, I've lost the light.  I know where to run but feel paralyzed.  I can't move even though I know that I must be able to do so. I just watch for the first pressure wave.  And I know its going to hurt, a lot, until I am finally dead.  Dead at God's hand.  And yet I am so thoroughly trapped, I can't fix it.  I can't get out.  Even though I must be able to or it would be unfair.  And above all things mentioned thus far, God is not unfair.

How I hate this.  I want to bring the curtain down, but I keep thinking that there must be a solution.  There must be a way to motivate myself to do those things I have to do.  I am so ashamed.  So totally ashamed of who I am and what I have done with my life.

Moods

Two insights about my overall mood.  1)  It is cyclical and 2) the overall direction across several cycles is negative.  Let's look at each.

1)  The cyclical nature is coincident with God only knows what.  I am sure there is a spiritual component, but it is if there is a huge delay between spiritual progress and the resultant impact on mood.  I can remember an instance where I went out in Field Service and that afternoon I felt this real "high" that I knew was a joy coming from having done what I knew I should be doing that morning.  Of course that was over 20 years ago.  More recently I spent several months gradually increasing the the "correct" practices: study,  meetings, prayer, service (the quad.)  Mood inched higher but given the level of effort (10 hours each week minimum) I was surprised at how imperceptibly the needle moved in any given week or month.  While the change was positive, the rate of change was abismal.

2) A year ago I was in a deep and dark place and would have thrown it all over if I hadn't fallen into the arms of a pretty good psychologist.  At 140 per session every other week and 160 per session for the psychologist and 300 /month for the medication, I chose not to keep it much longer than a few months.  It dug me out of a deep hole though.  Now I spend at least that much per month buying shit I don't need.  I get that little boost that lasts for a few hours when I get something new I like.  The disappointment that comes when I get something that is broken, or was different from what I ordered disrupts it though.  But I just buy more stuff to make up for it.


A few other observations:

1.  My mood can amplified and, strangely quelled, by listening to coincidental music.  In other words if I am feeling angry and frustrated, if I listen to music that inspires the same, then I feel more angry and frustrated but the also provided a relief and makes me feel justified in my anger and frustration.  I can feel the tension flowing out as I listen.

In a word, I guess, I'm tired.  I know it's all my fault but that doesn't make the tired feeling go away.  The only people who seem to want to talk to me are either disfellowshipped or they hold me up on a pedestal that I find extraordinarily uncomfortable.

So all 4 (count 'em 4) people that have any interest in talking to me are either "off limits" or take more energy than I am prepared to give.  And I don't want to go back to the congregation because they are so well versed in making me feel like crap.  Not unless I roll over and expose the vital organs.

Its party time!

I am just not quite there yet.  I don't know how much more of this I can take.  I hate what I am feeling.  To be specific, out of control, embarrassed and disappointed at the massive failure such as is my life.  It hurts like hell and the constant foreboding of worse to come is maddening.  To know that God is there willing to help and that I choose not to reach for that help is just so crazy insane.  Why do I not do this?

I know I can be stubborn, but this is truly absurd.  So every now and then (more then than now)  I find a way to get myself moving again.  I don't seem to be able to do this at will.  I want to make it happen, but it just seems out of my control, even thought I know it isn't.  I am just waiting to see how "motivated" I get when the GT starts.  Or I might just flip the other way and say "it's too late now! and party my way to hell.  Of course I doubt that will be an option.  I think I will be caught unable to do anything just waiting in he muck of the life and this system until my end comes.  What party?  there won't be anyone in a party mood at that point.  Least of all me.

And I know it's coming.  I know God is right,   I know the path to true happiness.  I just refuse to do God's will, ludicrous!  I am turning my back on God.  I am killing (have killed) my family and I am forced to watch it happen in slow motion powerless to turn the flow of events.  I am killing myself as well if there is enough time before God's judgment arrives and does it for me.  It's what I deserve for this immense collapse.  It doesn't take a grand master to see the checkmate's approach.  I've lost my nearly all my pieces and the most powerful piece I have, indeed the most powerful piece on the board, I ignore, choosing to scurry around the board trying to do the impossible, survive without God's help.

Showtime!

And so here I am again; "its showtime!"  This is the moment where I wrap myself in a persona of confidence and purpose.  Like doing this crap is of any importance in the grand scheme of things.  Yes, it's better than robbing banks for a living, but if I don't get my life in gear, I'll be just as dead as the bank robbers after armageddon.  We both have a sword of Damocles above our heads and while they differ in weight and hone, they both will kill.

These days I just want to get it over with.  I have been picked up and am on my way down again.  I don't even brace for impact anymore.  It all hurts just the same.  No point in protecting the vital organs, it's just a matter of time before everything is ruined beyond repair.  What an ending I have allowed myself to suffer.  If only I had  .  .  .

Maybe I could just .  .  . who the hell am I trying to kid.  Falling through 3000 feet, it won't be long now.

His Universe His Rules

So what do you do when you are buried so deep that the only sound is each new shovel full of crap hitting the pile.  I want to turn to God but I am so embarrassed I can't look up.  Not having the benefit of all that he would provide.  And, if Jesus, a perfect man spoke to him constantly, how much more so does this miserable sinner need  help, but I still ain't askin'.

I see the mistakes, current and past.  Yet when the next choice comes forward, I miss.  Again and again I miss.  I am falling deeper into my own grave.  Deeper from the level that brought on severe depression.  I don't see how to get out of this, not in a productive way.

It is like all the resistance is being steadily worn, blown, eroded, exploded away.  My resistance is down and just the raw nerves are exposed.  My mind is crying out to just stop the pain.  There is only one way that seems to be like something that I could do and follow through on.  I know the other way is possible but I have clearly demonstrated to myself and others that this is not something that I am willing to do.  Turning to God is possible until he makes it impossible.  He is approachable and hears prayers of the righteous.  However I am not righteous.  I am his enemy.  I hate that I have been unsuccessful in turning this around.

Why does He demand this humiliation.  I don't know but He gets to do that.  It's His universe and His rules apply, that is if we are going to stay alive.  Why would I be willing to take something of His.  People often claim "It's my life"  but in my case it isn't.  I dedicated my life to God.  I haven't followed through on this commitment.  Never in my life for more than a few months at a time.  I just can't get it together.  I hate what this has turned me into.  I know a very little something about God.  He doesn't tolerate partial devotion.  As far as I can determine, I am a dead man walking in his eyes.

What's Left?

Another bad weekend.  On a positive note I got the laundry done and straightened up a bit.  I even did a small amount of cleaning not that anyone would notice except in before and after photographs.

I stopped multiple times to look at nrop; this and eating are the only fun things left to do.  It's so pathetic.  So I heave a big sigh and continue doing the things (and failing to do the good things) that result in this mess of a life I now lead.

I am deeply ashamed of myself.  I hate what happened and the fact that I am not fixing it.  In fact I am still headed for Tarshish having been swallowed and spit out at least once.  I cannot abide my disgust for what I have grown up to be.  I am afraid to seek the truth from God and I am addicted to the trappings of Satan's world, those few I have been able to taste.

Sweetness of intensity such that one could imagine is too intense to survive and followed by deathly sickness that cannot be survived.  Instant addiction that will swallow years if not all of your life.  This is the "benefits" Satan's world brings.  And here I am, fully warned, and fully addicted.  Covered in refuse and lit aflame.  I want to point the phaser at myself, I don't have the strength to continue to withstand the pain.  Alone and ashamed

Well let me turn my attention to work.  Maybe I can forget about this for a while.  There is just nothing left, is there?

Inside Out

Wow, I'm slipping precipitously now.  That call from the Cheese may have sparked something.  Maybe it is the only chance I have got to keep me from hitting the bottom hard.

I can see myself falling into despair.  I want to be brave and stoic - holding myself up so that I die in one last act of defiance against my captor and ruler, but that is crumbling now.  I guess it has been crumbling for a long time and now I see yet another manifestation of the rottenness within making its way to the surface.

I guess I have pretty much decided that this will end badly.  I need to gather the materials. I'll grab my hoodie and head over to Party City.

The Cheese Is Coming to Town

So my  Disciplinary Board Chairman called yesterday.  If the pattern is the same, this means the circuit manager will be in town shortly and he wants to be able to tell him: "we tried, he just won't do anything."  It is games like this lead me to believe that there is no real concern about me; juvenile though it sounds, it hurts my feelings.  They are more focused on crossing their "i's" and dotting their "t's".  Even if that isn't true, it just hasn't helped.

I get all hopeful that this time will be different, and it isn't time after time.  So will I keep doing the same thing expecting a different outcome?  If not how else do create a velocity vector (in the correct direction?)  I hate myself.  There seems to be no way out of this.

Certainly almighty God can figure it out.  But I've all but stopped talking to him.  I am ashamed of who I am and the decisions I have made, and those I continue to make.  So I feel I can't raise my eyes to him.  It seems like I am just not JW material.  But in my heart of hearts I know that it is because of defects in that heart (figuratively speaking of course.)  It has to be my fault or God would not let me fall to my death.  And the ground is coming up pretty fast.  Sometimes I wish I could speed it up.  I don't have the courage for that, so I just close my eyes like a little girl.  No wonder no one likes me.  God, I have truly come to hate myself.

Signs Are Here Again

So here we are:  I have been listening to Goth all morning.  It has been a rater productive morning as the Goth seems to engage the screwed up part of my brain allowing the resto to focus on the work I really need to do.

I know it is a negative overall thing.  Certainly the tenor of the emails I have been sending is malafected.  I won't even see it until I get the blow-back from the recipients; either immediately if the content is  patently offensive or other.  Most likely a form I won't understand will appear because these emails cause a circumvolution about a slight which turns to a tempest.  All this to say here I go again.  How can I fix this?  The answer is always the same: study, meetings, prayer and service.  And then the question is always the same:  How am I going to make myself do that?

And I remain so totally damned.

I Need to Get Organized!

OK, its getting bad again.  I can't focus.  I can't accomplish anything.  I need to put my head down and focus.  I just need to get things done.

But what, there are so many things and I can't do them all

Let me just get organized, then I'll know what to do.

Argh! it is going to take me 45 days of hard work just to get organized!

OK so, I need a project plan to get organized to get on the long road to organization.

Wow, that's expensive software, as I recall.  I'll have to travel to my other place to get it.  Maybe I can find it on-line.  That will take some time to research, I'll add it to my list.

Yikes, My list is 200 items long! I'll never get this done.  I need to get organized!

And the downward spiral has started.

The Ex

So I have been dumped on bashed about and discarded by my ex-wife.  We are divorced for quite some time and but have been forced to interact with each other because of the children.

Now though we are interacting on an social level having nothing to do with the kids.  I'm not that into her, but I can see that she is getting more into me than I am comfortable with.  Of course, any reader familiar with this blog will know that I have no friends.  So I am totally vulnerable to anyone acting like they like me.  I have gone out with her multiple times.  Every time I do I end up dropping 100 USD or more.

This last time, though, her other friend ended up paying.

I just don't like myself more and more again.  I can feel myself sinking into depression again.  The music I listen to is going back to the goth classics.  It is all just feeling really bad now.  I am fat my teeth are yellow, I can't see and I am just descending into this fetid and stinking mass of ration blocking thought waves that lead me capable of only the most basic of functions.  I can't move and the control over myself is slipping away.  I hate what I have turned into, and that thought is coming back as the dominant consideration.

Whenever I finish a task and go to another, or come home from another place, or finish watching a TV show or movie, I just go back to "I hate myself; I hate what I have turned into.  I can't stand me!"  Again and again, more and more.  I focus on what I want which is all the things I can't have and I feel so badly that it will never come.  The end will come, God will rightfully kill me because I haven't done his will, and all these things I spend my time on now will just end.  God is clear of his expectations.  I am his enemy.  I deserve to die.  I sometimes I wish I could just get this whole stinking mess of a life overwith.  It doesn't make sense though.  Even if there is just a tiny chance  I should just keep trying.

It just seems so futile.  Satan has me in his grip.  I never escaped even when I thought I did.  And now he is using this bitch again to keep me under his control.  How she blinds herself to her own missteps is so freaking amazing.  And now she wants to lead me down the path with her, and I am letting myself  go right along.  My Lord and God Almighty (or at least one who is God Almighty as I have not ever fully succeeded in making you my God,) how can I fix this?  I am consumed and afraid.  Caught and controlled, with no apparent way out.  I hate this.  But here I am, with no where to go.

I can feel the motivation leaking out through my fingertips.  It is not like there was that much there to begin with.  I can taste the hate.  Smell the essence of my crazed disgust in my teeth and my throat. I don't know how to deal with this.  Nothing in me is OK.  It is all for destruction. I am just another piece of refuse to be swept away at armageddon along with all the others who refuse to do what God wants.

The glimmer of love for my children will be swept away, unrecoverable as it is inextricable from the tentacles of disgust that breach every corner of my mind and heart.  Why did I let this happen.  Why didn't I believe God's warnings.  Why couldn't I keep doing his will when I had the chance.  It is clear that I have taken my stand against God, if full knowledge of how monumentally stupid this decision is.  And yet here I stand, covered in feces and making the same mistake again, the same path that lead to my demise.  And I am doing it again; yet again, knowing where this leads.  Mark! why are you so very insipidly foolish?

One would think that I am insane.  Maybe that is correct.

Absolutely None

I met with my escort, Grace yesterday.  It was a disappointment.  I know that  I am a low margin customer at 200/hour and she apparently does as well.   So for 4 hours I paid 940 USD (adding 100 USD for outcall fee and 40 for a tip.)  That doesn't include the 230 USD for her ticket ( and not including mine at the same price.  So for 1500 USD I got an afternoon with a pretty woman who was very nice to me.  But she wasn't all that excited to see me and wasn't as exciting to be with as I anticipated.  It was like an OK date.  If this was an actual date I would have been left ambivalent about seeing her again.  Not opposed to doing so, but not all that excited about it either.

Oh well, that's the last time for that activity.  I suppose if I could do all that for about 100 - 200 USD it might make sense but not at 1500.  I suppose, all in all it worked out really ideally.  I have had my moment(s) with escort(s) and I don't want to do it again.  Just no interest there.  None, zip, nada, goose egg, like zero man.  Just what the ministers in my church (and really I myself) would want.

Too Tired

And here I am again today.  Tired as can be.  I woke up at 2:40 this am and basically didn't get much sleep since then.  It is like I wake up just so I can be tired during the day.  I tried to get back to sleep around 4:14 PM but I just wanted to rest a bit.  'cause I knew I needed to get up in minutes.

I am discovering (again) that I can't keep going without medication.  I just must have it.  I can't function normally without it.  I have become dependent on drugs for survival.  I am bordering on dream typing as I did yesterday but I am really fighting that because I just don't have the time for it today.

And now its tomorrow.  I took a sleep aid yesterday and I am continuing to find that it makes me sleep too much.  Need to start cutting the pills in half.  I feel much better though.  I am not nearly as sleepy at work when I have taken something the night before.  I really hate this.

And now it's next week.  Today I was extremely sleepy again in the morning and then again in the afternoon after a light lunch.  I must just do something.  I want to go back to the dr but it is just so very costly.  I'll do it if I have to but for not I am trying to avoid it.

Grace is coming this weekend.  I can do that  at well over a thousand, but then again that is a totally different motivation.  Immediate gratification is hard to I wish I hadn't set this up.  It is so damn costly.

Dream State

And here we go again,  Another work day starting and I am absolutely dead on my feet.  I am dropping into sleep unknowingly.  Just typing along and I drop into a dream state.

On this last time I was elevated (physically) and the put in the cockpit of a Japanese Zero fighter ready to attack something.  Then I realize that the fighter is on the side of the US.   Then I fall back into dream state and find myself in the war zone.  This time I am still away from the main camp.  Next I am a smallish boy wanting to eat breakfast.  My father, a great man, appears on horseback in a tent but the horse dies plunging forward.  Though my eyes there is no blood, just the front of the horse is has disappeared.  Then we have let. Now I am spectator watching someone (a dad).  Next I am in the army watching some hospital.  I am just all over the map, but I sense premeds basically they want to play doctor when they grow up.  So are they all perverts?  And someone is dead, with red eyes and a wife is very sad & afraid.   Then the man is an alien, and we are having to negotiate with him to leave you alone.  Then my father (unrecognized to me) appears in an extremely racially stereotypical environment playing baseball indoors with a frying pan for a bat.  Wow, that's weird.  But that's what you get when you are partially awake in the morning and your fingers are on the keyboard.

Then I am a late teenager going out to fix something.  I am leading the charge and my white sidekick will follow me.  I get close to my objective and a part of me is cast into a tree and tries to haul me up  by my long tail.  The tail breaks off.  I am just mildly irritated -- SNAFU.   Now the man goes back to his dead wife in repose in his house and imagines a huge explosion ending in a mushroom cloud.  A sound technician is asked to add the FX and grins and reaches for its store.  Then they come up to the next sorte and get ready to fire bomb it as well.  Yelling into the pig curing basement.  And a young early 20's girl is struggling to get out to add the strength of mind and resolve to win the fight.

The captain recons today the enemy has ridden marauding over the seas.  And his determination to heave it.  He escapes from the window realizing that the police want to lock him up and deny the call on which I ask forgiveness.  "Is that all?"  they reply who (apparently) is my mother.  My wife struggles to stay alive and wants to reach for and do something but she only manages a last silent look.  Unmemorable and blank.  Not how I would want to remember her.  There the movie ends.

Time for another coffee.

So a a few hours some light headedness and a serious hot flash later I realize that taking 225 mg of Wellbutrin isn't a good idea if you have been off it for a while.  I should take the remaining pills and break them into thirds (1/3) or smaller!

Turning the Boat

I am just a dingy in the waters of life but I handle like a freighter, that is to say it is difficult to turn myself away from the wrong course; really it is hard to turn toward goodness in any form, except maybe very short term good like cake, relaxation or sex.  I guess that is true for many people, but they are blessed (cursed?) by not knowing what the right course is.  They are still blinded by others who tell them how well they are doing in the course they have chosen.  Sometimes all they get is comradery of those of the same ilk.  But this is not about them, it's about me.

I know better; it is clear what I should be doing - serving God.   The reward is the best, the enjoyment of life is the best.  I just can't seem to cross the chasm between my current life and the life that I should be leading.

Thinking further, I know that my life apart from the depression management drugs doesn't work right.  I have to get back to the pill popping paradigm before I can return to normal.  I have to see my analyst; I have to see my shrink.  I am sick in the head and need the drugs to think and act rationally.  I just have to find a way to get that done.  I'll add it to the to-do list.

Oh, and serving God,  I have to do that too.  Let me add that to the list as well.  And I can't forget about personal development,  studying about management and technical topics, and scientific items.  Of course there is also social development, I must squeeze that in.  Oh and lest I forget there is also the studying needed to serve God - 10 hours a week minimum there.  Of course I can't do all this without some physical training.  So I need to sign up and start going to the gym again.  And so you see dear reader, I am hopeless.

So the obvious answer here is to pick the highest priority and start with that, then add the other things in descending priority order.  What's first?  That answer is easy:  Serving God in this order:

1. Study
2. Meetings
3. Prayer
4. Service.

This is a year long effort to get these things done.  Each one is a multi faceted effort.  To sustain this I must have the drugs so block B is:

1. Schedule Analyst
2. Schedule Shrink

Now block B is unsustainable without cash which is unsustainable without a job which won't continue without study so Block C is

1. Study HC'
2. Study Mgt
3. Study CS

Of course all this time commitment can't be sustained with the same old flabby self so block D has to focus around keeping my self in shape to be able to focus his higher mental effort.  This becomes:

1. Join a Gym
2. Establish and keep a week day exercise regimen
3. Get bikes in order - weekday ride to work
4. Weekend Exploring Rides.

The social skill training mentioned earlier, I just have to ignore that.  It should come with block A but it never has in a long term sustained manner.  Of course I have never done block A in a long term sustained manner.

Bottom line seems to be that I cannot make the needed changes.  I know that in real life I can make the changes.  I can get my life back on track, because while God does let us be tested, he doesn't allow test beyond our limits.  So the tests I have encountered were passable.  I just simply failed.  I don't love God enough to be the person he wants me to be. That takes coordinated effort.  It takes prioritization.  It takes commitment and sacrifice.  I fail by all these measures.  How to change?  With a project plan, priorities and objectives.  In other words planned and focused effort, bit by bit over a long time.

Tired & Still Descending

Aw hell, this is bad.  I am about to fall out of my chair I am so sleepy.  I am not sleeping right at home, I need medication to be able to get a good night sleep these days.  I am sure that if I got enough exercise, this would be a non issue.  But I don't get enough sleep and I am about to fall off my chair now.

I don't know why the insomnia hit last night.  I  woke up around midnight and could not (did not) get more than an hour of sleep after that.  I am doing that thing where if I sit too still and stare at a given item too long, then I will zone out behind my eyes.  It's awful.  I hate this.

Take the pills tonight you idiot.  For cryin' out loud.  Deal with this!

Anyway so I was looking at the situation a few weeks out.  I can get a room at a good hotel for around 150 per night.  That's a great rate for being in DC.  Grace will be in town and I could "make a weekend of it in DC like I did earlier.  It could be really fun, if we stay in another part of town, and spend Saturday and Sunday nights.  This would be interesting b/c Grace is bi and my ex-wife is bi-curious.  This could be the ménage à trois that I have been wanting for decades.  But then, do I want to be responsible for DC's further fall into sin -- no.  This isn't going to happen and I'm not gonna tell here that Grace is in town as I promised earlier.

That is the right decision.  In any case I'll end up spending about 4 hours with her which will cost me about 850 bucks (not including the 280 dollar ticket to the show I bought for her.  Oh well, it is all a part of buying experiences rather than more stuff.  I don't expect Grace to be much more than pleasant - fulfilling her stated objective.  I don't think she will try to coax me into more than that for which I had planned.  I am dead sure she won't.  I am rather sure I would not be able to resist if she really tried.  Right now I don't intend to bring enough cash for a longer than planned engagement.

Here I am thinking about this going foreword.  It is what I dream about.  Basically the only pleasant thing I will be thinking about in the next several weeks.  Maybe I can use the uplift to get some work done around the house.  I don't think that's possible..  I hate who I am and what I have become.  I am so thoroughly ashamed of what I have turned myself into.

Where am I going.  Right now, straight to hell.  I want to change the course (in a manner of speaking). but then again, we all do exactly what we want to in most situations, even if our doing so is mostly to belie our own feelings or inclinations for the purpose of the social advantage of others watching our selection.

Very few of us subjugate our own wants to those of a higher power for altruistic motives.  How would you ever know if this is what you were doing.  Given the propensity for people to fool themselves, thoroughly, I don't know how you could be sure unless you had a guide book that told you all the right answers.  Something like, dare I say it given how vehemently I have opposed its direction, the Bible.

You are a real piece of work dude.  You really have outdone yourself.