I'm now officially a worthless pile of crap
Most of the great eternal questions, e.g. "Why am I here?"; "Is there a point to this life"; "Where will I go when I die?" are all just forms of the real question, "Am I a worthless pile of crap?" That's the unstated underpinnings of the "great" questions we pretend to occupy ourselves with. If we are worth a damn the assumption is that life has meaning and we'll go to heaven to be rubbed in oils by young nubile women/men for eternity. If not then we go to the great poo-poo hole in the ground.
I have found the answer. I'm a worthless pile of crap.
I have great friends. Far better than I deserve. And I have pretty much failed them all. The final chapter closed yesterday when I missed my friends Reid and Tiffany's baby shower. Why did I do it? Because, as is all too often the case for me, I was asleep. Even I don't know how it happened.
Friday night I had the pleasure of Reid's company at a great little bar where I drank too much. The only mitigating factor in my defense is that over the course of spring break I have taken to sleeping during the days and being up all night. I had woken up at 11pm on Thursday and stayed awake so that I might go out to the bar with Reid on Friday night. By the time we finished I, through a combination of alcohol and exhaustion, could barely focus my eyes. I used all my will power to focus for the drive home, stayed awake for another couple of hours emailing people (will somebody please put a breathalyzer on my keyboard?) and went to bed without really thinking about setting an alarm. That was my biggest mistake. Next thing I know I'm waking up and it is "still" dark. I assumed this was the typical short sleep one gets when imbibing a few too many and rolled over to continue my hibernation. When I woke up and noticed it was "still" dark at 8:00 something clicked in my head. It wasn't "still" dark - it was dark again. I had slept for eighteen hours and missed the baby shower.
This is just gross irresponsibility on my part. One of the few bright spots of an otherwise bleak school year has been the kindness and friendship of Reid and Tiffany. I look at their impending parenthood as a sign of great hope and possibility in an otherwise worthless world. I wanted nothing more than to be able to share my joy with the other people who know them and to express that joy with a little token gift. I've reached the age where I found myself genuinely looking forward to attending a baby shower. And then I fucked it all up. It's just ridiculous now. I'm a grown adult who can and should be able to attend a 4pm event without six alarms and a wake up call. I kind of make myself sick.
What's worse is that I haven't called Jason. I've been friends with Jason now for almost half my life. I love him dearly and want to be a good friend. But I am not. I don't know what to say so I don't call. I think about it but then I just sit there. Which is the other theme of my life. I should be doing a lot of things but I just sit there. People ask me, "What have you been doing?" and I have no response because I know that what I've been doing more often than not is just sitting and staring straight ahead.
I sit and I stare. Sometimes in a moving car. But it's really the same thing. I sit and stare or I sleep. I'm disengaging from the world. Really my responsibilities are not so great. I need to do little more than treat the people I care about with respect, consideration, and decency. Now I have failed even in that. I sleep and I stare. I'm a fucking mental patient with a driver's license. I have failed to live up to the minimal requirements of my own degenerate value system.
I am, officially, a worthless pile of crap.
What to do now? I guess try harder. Seek redemption. Look inside myself and find out why I've become an empty life-sucking vacuum who fails to return kindness and consideration in even the crudest of fashions. Try to figure out why I'm sleeping through my life instead of living it. I make myself vomit. I apologize to everyone I've ever known.
Eric
I have found the answer. I'm a worthless pile of crap.
I have great friends. Far better than I deserve. And I have pretty much failed them all. The final chapter closed yesterday when I missed my friends Reid and Tiffany's baby shower. Why did I do it? Because, as is all too often the case for me, I was asleep. Even I don't know how it happened.
Friday night I had the pleasure of Reid's company at a great little bar where I drank too much. The only mitigating factor in my defense is that over the course of spring break I have taken to sleeping during the days and being up all night. I had woken up at 11pm on Thursday and stayed awake so that I might go out to the bar with Reid on Friday night. By the time we finished I, through a combination of alcohol and exhaustion, could barely focus my eyes. I used all my will power to focus for the drive home, stayed awake for another couple of hours emailing people (will somebody please put a breathalyzer on my keyboard?) and went to bed without really thinking about setting an alarm. That was my biggest mistake. Next thing I know I'm waking up and it is "still" dark. I assumed this was the typical short sleep one gets when imbibing a few too many and rolled over to continue my hibernation. When I woke up and noticed it was "still" dark at 8:00 something clicked in my head. It wasn't "still" dark - it was dark again. I had slept for eighteen hours and missed the baby shower.
This is just gross irresponsibility on my part. One of the few bright spots of an otherwise bleak school year has been the kindness and friendship of Reid and Tiffany. I look at their impending parenthood as a sign of great hope and possibility in an otherwise worthless world. I wanted nothing more than to be able to share my joy with the other people who know them and to express that joy with a little token gift. I've reached the age where I found myself genuinely looking forward to attending a baby shower. And then I fucked it all up. It's just ridiculous now. I'm a grown adult who can and should be able to attend a 4pm event without six alarms and a wake up call. I kind of make myself sick.
What's worse is that I haven't called Jason. I've been friends with Jason now for almost half my life. I love him dearly and want to be a good friend. But I am not. I don't know what to say so I don't call. I think about it but then I just sit there. Which is the other theme of my life. I should be doing a lot of things but I just sit there. People ask me, "What have you been doing?" and I have no response because I know that what I've been doing more often than not is just sitting and staring straight ahead.
I sit and I stare. Sometimes in a moving car. But it's really the same thing. I sit and stare or I sleep. I'm disengaging from the world. Really my responsibilities are not so great. I need to do little more than treat the people I care about with respect, consideration, and decency. Now I have failed even in that. I sleep and I stare. I'm a fucking mental patient with a driver's license. I have failed to live up to the minimal requirements of my own degenerate value system.
I am, officially, a worthless pile of crap.
What to do now? I guess try harder. Seek redemption. Look inside myself and find out why I've become an empty life-sucking vacuum who fails to return kindness and consideration in even the crudest of fashions. Try to figure out why I'm sleeping through my life instead of living it. I make myself vomit. I apologize to everyone I've ever known.
Eric