RIP Bailee
Posted this to Facebook at midnight. This is 40.
It’s my birthday! I’d love to be able to write something light and fun and uplifting, but gloomy introspection is what I’ve got instead. You’ve been warned. ❤
This is it: The Big 4-0. I made it, which is remarkable only because it was touch-and-go for a minute there. My thirties seemed like they were all about losing most of the things I cared about. I look at where my life is now compared to what I would have expected ten years ago, and there’s virtually no connection. Even within the last month, I’ve lost relationships I thought would last a lifetime. BNL had it right - “anyone loved can be lost”. That isn’t to say that life is totally empty now - I have a couple of close friends I trust, a great job, a positive relationship with my kids, and a theatre community that I’m genuinely enjoying - even if it’s hard to enjoy things sometimes. I love music and comedy and good food and time spent with pretty girls that make me feel special, like I’m not so alone, for a little while. I recognize there’s something broken in me that makes me ever aware of “The Lack” (for whatever self-awareness is worth). And I suspect that, given my track record of losing the people I get close to, there’s yet more fundamentally wrong with me than that. But I stumble on as well as I’m able, occasionally make people smile and hopefully enhance their lives in some small way by sharing good times. I’m a good teacher. Sometimes I’m a good friend. Lauren once told me, in the worst parts of the divorce, that I was not then and never would be capable of loving anybody but myself. It hurt me badly - but she was wrong. I know that I care, from the core of my being. I don’t have enough of what matters to fill the hole in my heart, but I’m happy to give from what I’ve got.
I thought I’d had the worst of my tilts with the depression monster back in ‘19 and ‘20, and while I suppose that’s true, I realize now that he’s been cleverly biding his time, learning just where to strike me when he wants to. I would hope that surviving what has to be the worst parts of my entire life (knock on wood) would bring me strength, but now I see that the psychic damage doesn’t ever fully fade. So while I *think* I’m a better and more authentic person who’s closer to capable of doing anything good, I don’t know if I’m any stronger. I think the wrong word - or even the wrong thought - at the wrong time can easily send me spiraling again. I fixate on my isolation too often. I think terrible thoughts at myself. I fear that any happiness I find will only lead to more hurt when I lose it in the end. But I still want that joy, quite badly in fact. 2022 was a very happy year by my standards; it was even worth the hurt I feel now, and I’d like to have another one before I leave. ‘23 ain’t it, even if I’m not ruling out the idea of it ending on a good note. But I think I’ve booked enough obligations and distractions to make it through the holidays, and get a look at the horizon. That’s where I find myself as I enter my forties - much closer to Thanatos than Eros, but willing to be shifted by forces outside of my control, and mostly willing to control what I can. I know what I believe about the world and about myself, and that those things might well be the end of me one day. But not today. Not right now. Not when there are still new adventures in store.
It’s my birthday! I’d love to be able to write something light and fun and uplifting, but gloomy introspection is what I’ve got instead. You’ve been warned. ❤
This is it: The Big 4-0. I made it, which is remarkable only because it was touch-and-go for a minute there. My thirties seemed like they were all about losing most of the things I cared about. I look at where my life is now compared to what I would have expected ten years ago, and there’s virtually no connection. Even within the last month, I’ve lost relationships I thought would last a lifetime. BNL had it right - “anyone loved can be lost”. That isn’t to say that life is totally empty now - I have a couple of close friends I trust, a great job, a positive relationship with my kids, and a theatre community that I’m genuinely enjoying - even if it’s hard to enjoy things sometimes. I love music and comedy and good food and time spent with pretty girls that make me feel special, like I’m not so alone, for a little while. I recognize there’s something broken in me that makes me ever aware of “The Lack” (for whatever self-awareness is worth). And I suspect that, given my track record of losing the people I get close to, there’s yet more fundamentally wrong with me than that. But I stumble on as well as I’m able, occasionally make people smile and hopefully enhance their lives in some small way by sharing good times. I’m a good teacher. Sometimes I’m a good friend. Lauren once told me, in the worst parts of the divorce, that I was not then and never would be capable of loving anybody but myself. It hurt me badly - but she was wrong. I know that I care, from the core of my being. I don’t have enough of what matters to fill the hole in my heart, but I’m happy to give from what I’ve got.
I thought I’d had the worst of my tilts with the depression monster back in ‘19 and ‘20, and while I suppose that’s true, I realize now that he’s been cleverly biding his time, learning just where to strike me when he wants to. I would hope that surviving what has to be the worst parts of my entire life (knock on wood) would bring me strength, but now I see that the psychic damage doesn’t ever fully fade. So while I *think* I’m a better and more authentic person who’s closer to capable of doing anything good, I don’t know if I’m any stronger. I think the wrong word - or even the wrong thought - at the wrong time can easily send me spiraling again. I fixate on my isolation too often. I think terrible thoughts at myself. I fear that any happiness I find will only lead to more hurt when I lose it in the end. But I still want that joy, quite badly in fact. 2022 was a very happy year by my standards; it was even worth the hurt I feel now, and I’d like to have another one before I leave. ‘23 ain’t it, even if I’m not ruling out the idea of it ending on a good note. But I think I’ve booked enough obligations and distractions to make it through the holidays, and get a look at the horizon. That’s where I find myself as I enter my forties - much closer to Thanatos than Eros, but willing to be shifted by forces outside of my control, and mostly willing to control what I can. I know what I believe about the world and about myself, and that those things might well be the end of me one day. But not today. Not right now. Not when there are still new adventures in store.