zymman

I think I hurt too much when I was a child. My most prevalent childhood memory is of me in the shower at night crying; it was something I did a lot. I was born into an undesirable family and so I, myself, became undesirable. From the moment I was old enough to know what it meant to actually want (or rather, need) to be desired, I felt like I tried everything I could to separate myself from my upbringing. To take influence from the lives of others that I felt were more normal and more desirable. But I never really seemed to be able to get my foot in the door, even amongst my friends I often felt like a punching bag. It was all in good fun, but when you already feel like an outcast everywhere else, it's not fun to feel like an outcast with the few people you feel really close to. I think the last straw for me was when I left the Marines and even my family rejected me. At that point I think I somehow subconsciously trained myself not to feel. Or maybe I just poured all of the feeling I had left into writing until I couldn't feel anymore and when I finally had given up on finding someone, that's when I found someone. I really don't know.

What I do know is that once I was in a relationship I gave her all of the things that I had ever dreamed of giving anyone and I was excellent at it. It was all uphill until the time something came along that neither of us was prepared for. We both had different ideas on what direction we should go from there and I think that's what caused our first rift. Raising a child hasn't been easy, but I think it is by far one of the simplest things we go through on a daily basis. One of the hardest has been getting ourselves to a point where we can connect on a long term basis. We have had steps forward and steps back, but lately it just feels like we're in a valley and sometimes I wonder if either of us is really trying to get back out of it. Sometimes I question whether I was ever really so great in the beginning at all, or if I was just doing a really good job pretending. Sometimes I still feel like I'm all alone, an outcast who has just tripped and fell into a normal situation and is trying to relearn everything I thought I already understood. That's why I connect so much with art that has do with people whose life choices (if they are truly choices) force them to be disconnected from society.

I've never really liked people, I absolutely loath social situations and when I'm forced into one I tend to find one person I like and gravitate towards them. I think this kind of weirds people out, because they understand those situations and are trying to be involved in the crowd dynamic. I think that when people get together the collective IQ in the room drops to dangerous levels and then any benefit of such a gathering is lost. Except pleasure. Which makes me wonder if I really understand pleasure, at least when it has to do with any more than one other person. I think that Jared gets me the most sometimes. He knows for instance that the reason I enjoy watching movies with other people is really because I want to know how much enjoyment they get from it. Or rather, I want to let people into the great art that I experience, because I want to give them the pleasure of experiencing it. And I want to be their when they experience it, so I can feel like I am giving them pleasure (which sounds a lot weirder than I mean it, I know).

I think what makes it hard for me around Ashley is that that dynamic doesn't work very well in large doses, but it is the only one I've ever known. When I think about it, I think that's the main way that I do feel_through art. So when I'm removed from that situation it's hard for me to find another way to communicate emotionally with someone. At this time in our lives I don't think I could be any further removed from art. Sometimes it feels like a chore to get Ashley to watch movies, when she is more than willing to watch substandard television for hours. Every once in awhile we really connect on something and that's great, but it doesn't seem to make all of the other problems in our life fade away. Which I guess it can't, but I would love to know what can. Maybe it's a scenario where we are both happier with what we are doing when we aren't together. For example, careers that we both enjoy. But really, that doesn't feel very attainable to me right now. I am much more worried about not ending up in the poor house like either of our families that it's hard for me to conceive of putting ourselves in debt with college tuition. Especially since I feel like our main concern at this point should be in the future of our child and not ourselves.

I understand that we have to be happy in order for him to be happy, but I wonder why we can't be happy with what we have. I wonder what I have to do in order to make what we have right now enough, at least until it feels safer for us to go for more. I just don't want us to be one end up as one of the 9 out of 10 people that don't find gold at the end of the rainbow. One of the many whose rocket exploded when they unsuccessfully shot for the stars. I want to feel like we can find some sort of common thread where we can both be happy. I don't need us to live on a peak, but I would prefer a nice green meadow to the valley where we've been spending most of our time.