Not Despair
It’s not despair. It’s loneliness. It’s guilt for pouring energy into the denial of the dead instead of the celebration of the living.
It’s guilt for not healing someone else. Guilt for not performing things to heal myself.
I had the thought that both Mom Johnson and Dad are gone. Aunt Pat passed before I sat down to have a conversation with her. They’re the three people directly responsible for my life in Alabama happening. I’m still trying to prove something to them.
I have more work to do.
Be proud of me
I’m halfway through my life (statistically), a man firmly in his forties, and I want them to see how well I did. How good the plan turned out. I did OK. I still have some stuff to do, but you won’t see it. I can tell myself you’ll see. Shouldn’t be a problem.
This feeling has to stop. This pressure. I have questions I might never get answers to, and the obsessive part of me holds onto unanswered questions (are you familiar with Gorilla Glue?). It will let them go. I have to, so I will. I mean to say this physical response has to pass faster.
I have more work to do. As my inner voice would say, ‘I have sh*t to do’. Really, I have so much more life to go. I’m one of the people who have existed in my kids’ lives since their first day breathing air. How much do I help them by spending their limited time with me being this posturing, broken person? Maybe they feel better about their own grieving when they’re with me.
When I post something funny, that’s how I want to feel. I want to be in a laughing, joking mood.
Pretending and Internet Content
It’s not despair because I know I’ll one day handle all this better. It’s fatigue. It takes so much energy to be OK. Today, it’s easier to be alone, keep my interactions brief, and not fake being OK when I’m at home. I figured out that I don’t have to pretend when I’m alone. Internet content isn’t a real-time capture of my state because you’re not reading this at the time I’m writing it.
Our Internet content is all a projection anyway. I won’t entertain any debate on this topic right now. Even if we’re projecting a better mood with a positive post, we’re projecting an emotional state we want to maintain or shift into. That’s how projection works. My point is (or TL:DR) when I post something funny, that’s how I want to feel. I want to be in a laughing, joking mood. I can never (intentionally) let a good performance go to waste, so I click PUBLISH.
Writing helps — still. I’m grateful for that, and I need to pause to appreciate it.
Originally published on michaelpwright.com.
