Reluctant Return
Attempting a return to Live Journal. I think i'll probably end up keeping all these post private as I reckon it'll probably contain some damning crap. I was trying to pinpoint what stopped me from writing in here; why did i stop posting? I remember journalling to be a very cathartic activity, and grounding... but then I stopped journalling completely. Sure, I've made a few sporadic returns, which I'm hoping this isn't, but I have never really posted consistently as I used to do in college. I think what holds me back is the potential for it to get out... Not that I plan to run for president ever, but the thought of people knowing the real me is scary. I think Live Journal was always about presenting a version of me that was more acceptable as from the start I always had the understanding that these were public. I wrote knowing that I had an audience, so everything I wrote kept that audience in mind. It was not like the journals i kept in High School; the journals from high school were raw, a natural, stream-of-consciousness, representation of my life. I loved that. I wasn't scared that it would come out, even though it was only ink on a notebook... I wasn't scared that the reader would judge me, though there was a lot in there that was very very personal... Hell, I never thought past the day I was writing! I guess that was the beauty of youth! I yearn to be that carefree again. Even in writing this, though I know that I will post it as private and that, chances are, anyone that I know with a Live Journal has moved on from it by now, I am still conscious of the entry's tone periodically hitting the automatic spelling corrections that keep popping up!
I'm at the airport at the moment... To be more specific, I am at Dubai International Airport Terminal 3 Business class lounge! How I got here can be the subject of a novel or a made-for-TV movie... As this will be marked as private, the only person that would possibly read it (besides the internet spies/ the government!) would be future me so, I don't really need to recap on how i got here as my audience (me!) already knows. The gist of it is, Kim and I are technically separated at the moment. I've started seeing a therapist (who is really the one who insisted I begin writing again!) to help me through this and perhaps to help Kim and I return to some kind of relationship. Is there life after abandonment? This is what we are really exploring with Tumi the therapist... Probably we are both doing it out of obligation to the family unit we built over the span of 10-years time, the real question should be, would we still be fighting if we didn't have the kids? Honestly, It seems desperately clear to me that someone in their right mind could never steal someone else's kids away for any purpose, but clearly, this is where Kim and I differ! My struggle would be to put that fact in the past for the sake of moving forward, but I'm not sure how I could do that. Since she left, my mind has started having thoughts about a life without her and without my family, and admittedly these thoughts go from content, to happy, to hopeful, to depressing, to tragic, to devastating. Sometimes within only a short span of time! I go out and see women and think, could I, after over a decade of being committed, get back into "the game"? Then I remember the happy times, and I think of my kids, and my values, and what I would have to give up in order to go back to that, and I get massively depressed. The Gemini twins in me are constantly at ends! One wants the single life; prostitutes, drinking, voting for Trump, flying business class, etc. The other wants to live for his family and friends; join the PTA, support social welfare, attend birthday parties, go to Disney World, etc. Probably, if the therapist knew this, which she doesn't, she would say that the real me is somewhere in between the two? The real me is both of those, but they both can't live in the same world, so I have to choose! Right now, without having my family here with me, the former is starting to take over. I'm finding myself more annoyed with the so-called woke culture and the current state of the world than I have ever been before. This side of me wants to embrace capitalism for what it is, the norm. The other side of me can't possibly agree with any of the right-winged ideals. I went to Drama School, and my friends are mostly former actors and current teachers; I am a black man from America, don't I know what it means to be a black man from America? I'm having more of an identity crisis than even I know!
But none of that changes the fact that I am at the airport. And, I am at the airport against the advice of my therapist. She wanted me to just ignore that I spent almost 8,000DHS for this trip because my presence in the same country as Kimberley might make her feel awkward. My initial thought was maybe we can take a night or two and forget about our issue and have a good time. I had suggested Edinburgh as it was declared the New Year's Party capital of Europe. I knew my plan was doomed when she suggested Cheltenham instead, presumably where back-country octagenarians go to slow down? I was up for the compromise though. Maybe I have to learn to compromise? I have to learn that Kim and I don't sit at the same level, so our thoughts of a good time are not the same anymore. Kim used to be the girl up for going with me to Anti-christ, to Germany, to random house parties. I recognised that we are getting older, but damn, we are only in our 30's! Her excuse was,she has to feed the baby; As if she has never expressed and stored milk before. As if formula milk doesn't exist. It wasn't like this with Viola! Or maybe it was, but I didn't notice because it was our first child? I do remember still going out, we had a babysitter...
Anyway, I am rambling. This is truly a stream of consciousness as I don't have a cohesive throughline nor a determined point to this entry beyond just writing; and i don't have anywhere to go for the next 3hours? To be honest, I don't even know how to breach all the subjects in my head yet! What do I feel about Em... or Nad... or any of my recent transgressions into a strange new world? What is going on with my body right now? How do I speak about John Cullen, especially knowing that the future me reading this knows how it ends up, good or bad. What do I actually feel about this trip to England? Hey, I have a bag full of Christmas presents for the kids and no idea how I'm even going to get them to them. I could probably spend the next 3 hours writing about all of this in this format, to be honest! There is so much swimming around my head at the moment that it's more difficult deciding what not to write about...
I'm at the airport at the moment... To be more specific, I am at Dubai International Airport Terminal 3 Business class lounge! How I got here can be the subject of a novel or a made-for-TV movie... As this will be marked as private, the only person that would possibly read it (besides the internet spies/ the government!) would be future me so, I don't really need to recap on how i got here as my audience (me!) already knows. The gist of it is, Kim and I are technically separated at the moment. I've started seeing a therapist (who is really the one who insisted I begin writing again!) to help me through this and perhaps to help Kim and I return to some kind of relationship. Is there life after abandonment? This is what we are really exploring with Tumi the therapist... Probably we are both doing it out of obligation to the family unit we built over the span of 10-years time, the real question should be, would we still be fighting if we didn't have the kids? Honestly, It seems desperately clear to me that someone in their right mind could never steal someone else's kids away for any purpose, but clearly, this is where Kim and I differ! My struggle would be to put that fact in the past for the sake of moving forward, but I'm not sure how I could do that. Since she left, my mind has started having thoughts about a life without her and without my family, and admittedly these thoughts go from content, to happy, to hopeful, to depressing, to tragic, to devastating. Sometimes within only a short span of time! I go out and see women and think, could I, after over a decade of being committed, get back into "the game"? Then I remember the happy times, and I think of my kids, and my values, and what I would have to give up in order to go back to that, and I get massively depressed. The Gemini twins in me are constantly at ends! One wants the single life; prostitutes, drinking, voting for Trump, flying business class, etc. The other wants to live for his family and friends; join the PTA, support social welfare, attend birthday parties, go to Disney World, etc. Probably, if the therapist knew this, which she doesn't, she would say that the real me is somewhere in between the two? The real me is both of those, but they both can't live in the same world, so I have to choose! Right now, without having my family here with me, the former is starting to take over. I'm finding myself more annoyed with the so-called woke culture and the current state of the world than I have ever been before. This side of me wants to embrace capitalism for what it is, the norm. The other side of me can't possibly agree with any of the right-winged ideals. I went to Drama School, and my friends are mostly former actors and current teachers; I am a black man from America, don't I know what it means to be a black man from America? I'm having more of an identity crisis than even I know!
But none of that changes the fact that I am at the airport. And, I am at the airport against the advice of my therapist. She wanted me to just ignore that I spent almost 8,000DHS for this trip because my presence in the same country as Kimberley might make her feel awkward. My initial thought was maybe we can take a night or two and forget about our issue and have a good time. I had suggested Edinburgh as it was declared the New Year's Party capital of Europe. I knew my plan was doomed when she suggested Cheltenham instead, presumably where back-country octagenarians go to slow down? I was up for the compromise though. Maybe I have to learn to compromise? I have to learn that Kim and I don't sit at the same level, so our thoughts of a good time are not the same anymore. Kim used to be the girl up for going with me to Anti-christ, to Germany, to random house parties. I recognised that we are getting older, but damn, we are only in our 30's! Her excuse was,she has to feed the baby; As if she has never expressed and stored milk before. As if formula milk doesn't exist. It wasn't like this with Viola! Or maybe it was, but I didn't notice because it was our first child? I do remember still going out, we had a babysitter...
Anyway, I am rambling. This is truly a stream of consciousness as I don't have a cohesive throughline nor a determined point to this entry beyond just writing; and i don't have anywhere to go for the next 3hours? To be honest, I don't even know how to breach all the subjects in my head yet! What do I feel about Em... or Nad... or any of my recent transgressions into a strange new world? What is going on with my body right now? How do I speak about John Cullen, especially knowing that the future me reading this knows how it ends up, good or bad. What do I actually feel about this trip to England? Hey, I have a bag full of Christmas presents for the kids and no idea how I'm even going to get them to them. I could probably spend the next 3 hours writing about all of this in this format, to be honest! There is so much swimming around my head at the moment that it's more difficult deciding what not to write about...