Sometimes I wonder what happened to the guy I used to be. The sarcastic, insouciant bloke who just didn’t give a damn and loved living life. I really used to be him. Don’t get me wrong, when I say that I didn’t give a damn it doesn’t mean that I didn’t care about anything, far from it.
I always had things that concerned me. I have always had my share of issues that I was concerned about, but they were primarily external issues. I didn’t worry about my ability to provide, I didn’t worry about what kind of father I was or anything like that.
Maybe it is the impact of the real world. Maybe it comes from stories like this or from watching friends die and hearing stories about people I know being murdered. Maybe it comes from a thousand different things, I don’t know.
What I know is that I feel like a walking contradiction. My self-confidence was shaken by something and sometimes it feels like it was broken forever. Yet, I cannot help but believe that this was a good thing. I cannot help but believe that adversity can be used as a positive, that it can be a source of growth.
It sounds like a load of horseshit and maybe it is. Maybe I am engaging in my own mental mindfuck, but in the end we all have to find a way to get out of bed in the morning. In the end no matter how much love or support we have we are still alone inside our own skin and it is our job to figure out how to live.
We can be comfortable in the quiet of the evening. We can be at ease in our own skin or we can do otherwise. You can fill in your own metaphor for discomfort, I just don’t like the crap I keep coming up with.
Back to the contradiction. I don’t always worry. I don’t spend all of my time afraid of those things that I can’t control. Most of the time I keep the nagging demons at bay and I live without making myself any crazier than I already am.
But sometimes I just can’t do it. Sometimes I feel so damn weak and worn down. Sometimes I sit in the dark and look out the window and wonder how to make it. Sometimes I wonder about my father and grandfathers. I don’t remember them like this and even though each of them has shared their stories of self-doubt with me it just seems different. It is not that I think of myself as being special, just that they seemed so much better at dealing. Or maybe it is that I hear the stories of the past and I pick up on the confidence that they exude from having survived those times.
I don’t know. What I know is that at times I worry so damn much about my children and their safety. I am a news hound yet I find myself avoiding more and more stories about children. It is not like me. As much as I may worry I am also an advocate of taking on challenges headon. Better to get it over than to leave too much time to worry.
Yet, these stories rip a hole in my heart and tear at my soul. The things that I read about. The stories about these children are like tiny pin pricks. Each time I read them I feel badly for that child and their family and then I thank G-d for my own blessings.
In the end I always come back to the same place. Though I may agonize over these things I do what I do because that is what I do. That is a copyrighted statement of mine along with it is what it is.
I live because I don’t know how else to do be. It sounds ridiculous but…
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