Vampire with a Soul: December 2005

My brother slept during most of Christmas. I asked my cousin's kid Elle to put some glitter on him. A good idea? I still stand firmly by my decision.

Riley and Bailey, my brother's dog, entertain the Christmas guests.

Our god daughter Kelly on Christmas Eve.

Riley, post-spay, sans bucket, approx 64 pounds.

Lots of cards...

Cool Blue

I didn't have any idea what to title this entry, so I named it after the song that's playing on my iTunes right now. A song from 1983 by the Eurythmics. They just had a new hits album out with two new songs, which I bought off iTunes on line. The songs are okay, but not, in my opinion, up to the standard of the last Eurythmics album, which was fantastic.

I just finished reading a book called THE BURN JOURNALS. It's a memoir by a boy who tried to kill himself at 14 by setting himself on fire. It was a page-turner, to be sure, but I don't know that I thought it was "good." I was interested, but I wanted more from the ending. One of the overall themes was that he wouldn't talk to any of the therapists he came into contact with. They'd ask a question, and he'd say, "I'll have to think about that," and then never answered them. I wanted him to get to the point where he finally answered their questions, where he finally tried to understand why he'd lit himself on fire, but he never did.

Some of the things he thought were familiar to me, though. When bad things happened to him, he would often think, "I just want to get out of my life." He had a difficult time facing up to the things he did wrong, and he had a difficult time fully understanding that his existence was important to those around him.

I guess at this stage of the game, I get that I matter to the people in my life. I get that they'd be sad if I wasn't around, if I died. But I don't really think there'd be much of a change after they got used to me being gone. I don't feel like I add much to anything. I guess I must be important to my father; I'm the only one who takes care of him without making him feel like crap. And I must be important to my wife because we really can have some great conversations and great times together. But I think for the most part I'm mostly a downer for everyone else. I don't see that I add anything to anyone. I think I'm boring. I think I can be a whiner. I think I'm far too needy and too judgmental.

And I don't think I really want to change...I'm not sure what I want. I realized today that I'm depressed. I talked to my wife about it a little, but I don't know what to say, really. I'm sure it has to do with the holidays and how my family really makes things difficult for me during the holidays. I want to have fun and enjoy the peace of the season and sing stupid carols and things like that, but they are so tense and so needy and so obnoxious...I can't enjoy the holidays like I want to. And I wonder if it will ever be different.

Sometimes I think about what it will be like when my father's gone. I don't necessarily want him to die anytime soon, but it's likely in the next few years. Sometimes I think about my brother reaching his wit's end and killing my father. That wouldn't surprise me much. I don't think my brother can handle much more. He has no healthy outlet for his frustration and he can't admit that he's depressed on top of it all. I just wait for the phone call saying he's done it.

I don't think that would work out very well for anyone, to say the least.

But the point was that I sort of relate to the boy in the book. He says he is so sad all the time that he just wants it to stop. Sometimes I listen to people talking about things and I get so down I don't know what to say to them. My wife and her mother were talking about global warming and her mother said that polar bears are dying because their habitat is melting and they can't swim far enough to make it to the next peace of ice or land. She kept saying how strong polar bears are and how tragic it is.

It gets me thinking about how the end is really inevitable. That everything humans do really does end up killing the world around them. That there's no point in trying to fix it because it can't be fixed at this point. Some people don't even believe that there's a problem with global warming. Some people don't think anything will happen in their lifetime. Some people just don't care at all.

Even something as simple as recycling can depress me. So many people just throw things away or drop them in the street instead of recycling them. How is it possible that some people are so simple minded or so self centered that they can't care about the rest of the planet or the rest of the world? And at that rate, I could get into a thousand other issues: racism, poverty, war, politics, religion, blah, blah, blah.

No one agrees on anything and even the things we say we agree about, we don't. Even if everyone agreed they loved the earth and wanted to make it a safe place, there are too many things they wouldn't be willing to give up for that end.

I get the feeling I'm babbling. I was trying to finally write down how my brain works on these problems and goes from one thing to another until they're all so huge they weigh me down too much and I can't think and I can't eat and I can't do anything but sleep. Even when I'm on my medication, which I am. Even when I have everything I need, which I do. Even when I know my wife loves me, which she does. My mind sometimes makes everything awful. Hopeless. Pointless.

And it doesn't help that we're now more in debt than we have been in years. One thing after another lately has doubled our debt. I feel like we'll never get out of it. And my wife is still talking about having a kid. How can we afford a kid? And why do I want to bring a kid into such a wretched place?

We have all this baby stuff. Clothes and stuffed toys and books and even a gliding rocking chair. (It's very comfortable.) We've been collecting it over the past three years. I was so serious about having a kid about three years ago. Now, I'm not so sure anymore. I don't think that I can handle my own expenses, let alone a child's. Especially the first three/four years with day care. Another $1000 or more a month. We don't make enough money for that.

It's no wonder that I can't write right now. I keep thinking if I could polish up this book I'm on right now, I might be able to sell it and then maybe we'd have a few thousand dollars to put toward our bills, but I can't focus on the story. I keep thinking it's stupid and pointless and that no one will want to read it. Why would anyone want to read a story about a boy who feels pressured between two friends and has a crappy homelife? It's trite and boring.

I've tried more caffeine and chocolate. I've tried sleeping more. I've tried everything I used to do when I was depressed and not medicated. But I am medicated and still I'm depressed.

I think the root of it all is that I have no one to turn to. I don't mean a therapist. I mean like a role model, a father, an older brother, a strong friend. I've got no one who can help me with things like this. My father has never been anything more than a throw-money-at-it problem solver. And always not enough money. My brother is a lost soul who can't help himself. My friends, though I like and care about them, are not in any place to be a rock for me. My wife...she's as close as I get to someone I can turn to, but when we're in the same sinking boat, she's not much of a help.

I don't know what I want or what I need. I just know that I wish I had someone to go to and talk to about this who would have advice to make everything be okay. Everyone I know is either worse off than I am or not sympathetic. I feel like I have no one. I feel utterly alone.