Dear Blog,
The title is a quote of someone I thought was a friend, in reference to Faulkner books. I use it today in reference to my last blog entry, 'So 2020 was a rough year'. I've said to people recently, or started to, 'it's been a rough year' but I have to stop, because it's been a rough several years. Or, can I even think of the last year that wasn't some kind of disease ridden shit-storm?
This blog only goes back to 2007. Before that, I was a late adolescent, which I didn't fare super well in that endeavor. I was deeply depressed and on track to commit suicide more likely than not, until 2007. I guess that 2008 was pretty good, started at Central. I remember being very stressed about making grades. I was in very poor health and physical shape, and a minority as one of only 2-3 white people any given day, certainly the only white person in my whole dorm. I don't mean to say it was all bad. I think overall, 2008 was a good year.
2009, Was ok, I guess? I also retrospectively think that was the year I probably could have seen the writing on the wall and never gotten engaged to the person I would later divorce. But really, no, I had no chance of seeing that far, and didn't have the tools to read the writing on the wall whatsoever. It was a fun year. I'm going to judge that as the last good one for a long time after.
2010, Kicked out of the college of education, the end of a years-long pursuit of being a high-school teacher.
2011, Married (yay!) started graduate school, realized I was under-prepared, realized I might flunk out, screamed and cried and studied all at the same time in December and sought therapy for the first time as an adult.
2012, Cancer.
2013, Serious relationship issues, started at Kent, and struggled since I didn't get full stipend, again under constant stress that my ability to pass exams was between me (us, at the time) and financial ruin. Starting with no social network, but only the second time. It wasn't that tiresome yet.
2014, Juniper was born in June, and that's good, but no parent will ever tell you that the first six months does not constitute a rough year. I studied for qualifying exams with a newborn in the house. I took one of those qualifying exams with the flu. I had fever, chills, and diarrhea, but if I didn't take and pass that exam, I wouldn't get my stipend.
2015, Nothing jumps out at me. I guess it was pretty ok. Maybe that's really the last not rough year.
2016, Vivian quit school, plunging us into poverty, and Donald Trump was elected president.
2017, I wrote a whole blog about that catastrophe.
2018, Mental illness, complex relationships (read, extra-marital), believing I'd found and experienced god, and then realizing... it wasn't real. Realized I was not going to make it at my job, and would have to give up on teaching at a college. A ten year ambition and endeavor.
2019, Separated from my wife, quit my singing group, quit my career. Started dating after 11 years. I didn't like dating. I never liked dating. I always just wanted to get to the stable relationship part. In a lot of ways, things were a lot better for me. But it was still a rough year.
2020, Australia caught on fire. Remember that?
2021, More Covid, separating from my partner who I owned a house with, getting back together, having a strained relationship, getting pretty paltry raises even though I was advancing rapidly and a key member of teams at work.
2022, Serious problem drinking, trying and failing to get a new job, primary cohabitated relationship extremely strained, financial struggle. Wondering how I had been making good money for years and still was completely broke, all the time.
2023, so far, I've joined AA, and started a new job at twice the pay, permanently separated from my partner of 3.5 years, and found myself at 37 years old, pretty much broke, my name stuck on a mortgage I can't get out of, single, and on a diet to lose 30 pounds of self-pity weight I put on last year. I've biked through 15 new counties this year, with only 5 left to go. It's just inevitable now. If my legs were cut off, I could do one of those hand-pedaled ones. I just have to not die for a few more weeks.
I had a plan. This wasn't it. Teaching job, wife, kids, cats, mortgage, dual income, burn the mortgage stay in one place til I die. I lived on Hazelwood avenue for 11 years. The longest I've lived anywhere since is 3 years.
I'm enjoying being alone, to an extent. For the first time since I was maybe 15, I am actually ok with being alone. And I'm also looking forward to casually dating, later, when I'm ready. Being alone affords tremendous freedom. Today, for instance, I could have done anything, no responsibilities. I considered spicy Indian food, going someplace new. I did try to go someplace new, but when I got there, I realized that I had already been once. Huffman metropark. 30k round trip bike-ride, very windy. For the evening, I ended up staying in, and inventing onion chipotle dip, and made a breakfast burrito for dinner with four sausages and Taco Bell baja sauce. I also took time to blog, played go and was sure I'd lost by a good amount til the score said I was up by 1.5 (actually was super duper fun, that). I played guitar on my porch in the rain. I'm pretty good, you know.
No one hears. The windows are closed, air conditioners are on.
I'm deeply depressed. I dream idly of working til I can retire, get a catamaran and a barrel of margarita and just drift away. For so many years, I thought along the lines of Camus. Why shouldn't Sisyphus be happy? The way is the goal, from striving comes the real-ness of the feeling of success. These are the ways I thought. And now, I'm busy, I eat spicy, fatty things, and they taste good, and then they are gone, and I am staring at an empty plate. When I had everything, I had an empty plate. When I thought I was finally full, I was wrong, and it was an illusion. I was a junky, and people lied to me. I don't trust anyone, but at least I'm sober.
I'm like a castaway. I've made a pretty nice drum-kit from coconuts and washed up bottles, bics and netting. I play it sometimes. And sometimes I don't bother.
I've been on Duolingo for a couple months here. The rust is coming off my German. Das Leben ist ja kla wirklich Änderung. Es ist beide das beste, und ganz schlecht. Ich denke auf Deutsch, manchmal, und ich spreche, mit mir selbst. Weil es gibt kein Mann ander zu hören. Und das is der Problem.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
-Ian Hogan, PhD
No comments:
Post a Comment