3 am musings from 11-19

NOTE: This is something I wrote on an overnight in the wee morning hours of 11-19, I hope this spirit of inspiration continues and I can record more of my life over the next few weeks.

Introspection in retrospect after a 3 AM viewing of Annie Hall

I was named after Annie Hall you know. Not directly silly, but after a running joke in the movie. The running joke is that Woody Allen's character and his sort of best friend through the movie keep having conversations and instead of using their character's names they both refer to the other as Max. Of course I didn't find this out until my middle teens, I want to say 16 but it might have been earlier. After I had found out about sex but before I was having it my dad showed me the movie. Up until this point I had been under the impression I was named after my granddad who was Samuel Max but everyone called him Max. They still do. Sometimes I wonder if my mother is in on the joke that we tell everyone that I am named after my highly successful and admirable granddad, but in fact I am named after a neurotic woody allen character. I think that's what set up the whole dynamic of my life. On the outside sure I'm successful and happy, but inside I worry and I cover up my insecurities and I know all about my imperfections.

I realized here it is 4 AM towards the end of November and I haven't done any quality introspection since, I don't know, maybe September but more likely since July. It's been a bad year for my creativity. I started out so strong with short stories.... no wait that was two years ago. Where was I a year ago? Aha, I haven't been really creative since I went back to school. This years “strong” start was trying to make it work with Nikki..... that's a road I don't want to go down right now. At the moment I'm trying to live in a regret free zone with Nikki.... she's expecting her third child with a third man and it's not me and I'm glad..... maybe a part of me wishes it was me but NOW?! Certainly not. I could not approach fatherhood appropriately right now. I mean I feel castrated at school, I won't be returning in the spring and I feel empty about so much....... Being a father to me always meant having things figured out.

I feel completely aimless about the road ahead. Sometimes rather bleak if you want the truth. Frankly I don't think it would be a horrible tragedy if this was the end. But I'm supposed to be trying to find more gray area in my life. I appear to suffer from cognitive dissonance according to my therapist I see things in black and white and I do, I do do that. So what do I do about it? I asked him this, he thinks me being aware of it and of my issues with lack of control and ambiguity will help me deal with them. So if this isn't the end, and life is not wonderful...... it just is. I hate that there is not an adequate word for describing the reality in which something is not a success and it is not a failure. For something that exists in total opposition to definition by either category. My life being the prime example of this frustrating linguistic conundrum. The future is neither a good thing or a bad thing. It exists in an ambiguous state in relation to the rest of reality. While many things are concrete and definable my life utterly defies such plebeian things such as the English language. I'm certain that the Germans or perhaps the Greeks would have had a word for this state. Probably the french as well, if only for the purposes of Camus.

My therapist was talking with me about the perfect woman, we had just defined one of my problems that I am a perfectionist. Oh well. Moving on we discussed my perfect woman. Of course in one of the rare moments of disharmony with my therapist I really wanted to discuss my attempts to control the situation and why they had not worked and he wanted to discuss how my obsession with power and control involuntarily led me to choose substandard women.... well women with issues we can't really define substandard women without saying that there is a standard that women should be held to and what does that say about me? Women are in the end not a commodity no matter how much I treat them like one. You cannot quality sort women, they in general defy it and again it requires broader knowledge than I am privy to. I suppose the natural standard I want to hold women to is the standard of my mother, well how Freudian is that?

In the end I am drawn to women who are lacking in compassion but with respectable intellectual capacity. Often times it just comes down to who will give me what I desire: at the moment this manifests as a decent amount of compassion and the warmth of occasional physical contact without the required full honesty of intimacy. I am intimately incapable and have been for a few months. But that comes back around to my main point; I don't feel ready for the whole dance anymore. I settle for remaining able to have my legs under me. I desire more, I really do, I think that I should be able to do more in the way of love. I want romance and sparks, and well, to quote Gene Wilder “I want everything I've ever seen in the movies!”

I remain ever pragmatic about the whole problem. For one though I have faith that God will provide, that doesn't mean what he provides will always meet my definition of good or that he can reverse the damage that sin has done on my mortal body. Yes I know I am young and young people bounce back but at the moment I don't feel so young. I feel very tired of pushing forward through the endless murk that is this existence. I feel that I am alone though I am told I am loved I await evidence of such. At the moment I cannot even afford Christmas presents for my family. *sigh*