Until tomorrow

Some days it's hard to care a less. Some days I wonder if I ever have cared, whether it's just a pose, just what I feel I should feel. I don't know. Some days I even wish I was incapable of caring and always had been, that I could have been able to use what I have to make a ton of money and say fuck you all.

Because I do say fuck you all. Today.

I am on the edge just now and it's not a good place to be. I have work for this month and none for next. When I ask about more, my clients blank me. I have a regular gig. It's about 40 hours a month. I need 100. Mrs Zen makes the equivalent of 30 but that's supposed to be paying off cards and stuff. Does anyone actually ever pay off all their debt? (I paid down a credit card last month, which leaves two. The amounts I have on them probably wouldn't strike you as very much: about six grand altogether, three of it interest-free stuff and a tax rebate will pay down all of that before it's due.)

I think a lot about how else I could get money but I'm not drowning in ideas. I could do massage but I'm not sure about the market and I'm out of practice. Excuses, I know. All I want is to be able to play poker well enough to make the same living from it as I do from editing. But I suck at poker and I'm never not going to.

I also suck at writing. Stuff like this, yeah. Flaming, trolling, the quick retort, I can do that. But I have no imagination. I ran dry years ago. I can fake it, but I don't feel it. There's more to it than being a fluent writer. It's not that I couldn't churn out some shit that would make money. Of course I think I could. But I don't have the ability to apply myself. Much worse writers make tons of money. I was bitter about it when I was younger; now I just know that is how the world is. You can hate it, but changing it is too much for a worn-out guy at the backend of nowhere, Queensland.

I only worry about money because of my dependents though. For my part, I could just drown myself if I didn't have a cent. I have no joy left in me at all. I do not wake up and think what a wonderful morning. I wake up and think nothing at all, just what I have to do to survive and have my family survive. I am hoping I do not damage them too badly, but what use am I to them? At this point, I am gritting my teeth because I am not the family man at the moment. I am having to work at it. That doesn't feel good.

Usually, I feel a lot better about things when my parents visit. But not this time. Mrs Zen was very critical about my dad. I know he can be an idiot, but she is not giving credit for good intentions. It seems she is unable to do that any more. Am I guilty of hardening her? I went off the rails. I know it but I want to get back. She wants to revel in my being off them. She does not want to accept my willingness to make things good. She wants our relationship to be bad so long as she can blame it all on me.

Do not ask me why I married such a fucking idiot. I do not know. I don't care any more. I don't rake over my choices; I just try to bear them.

It's not just that, of course. I just didn't feel uplifted by them. Not their fault. I am just too numb, too unable to feel anything the way I should (or feel I should, if that makes any sense). Tonight, I got angry with Zenella. She wouldn't go to bed and was trying to wind us up, the way little kids do. They sit just out of eyeshot, make noises so you know they're there. But I pulled back, reeled myself in. I stopped and said, what do you need? I realised that she was lacking something, trying to express that, not trying to piss me off. She wanted someone to tuck her into bed. So I did it, and now she's sleeping.

If I wasn't on the edge, I would have done that first, not after having to reel myself in. I hate myself for not being the good man I feel I am.

Or I would if I gave a fuck. Which I don't. Today. I will tomorrow.

posted by Dr Zen @ 8:21 pm