Rant #4--round up the usual self-pity.

Old habits never die. SOmetimes I wish I would.

I am sick and tired about being discontent with my life. I wish I were born stupider. Or at least I wish I didn't have ambition.

As Salieri said in the movie version of Amadeus, "if God refused his touch from me, then why implant the desire?"

But what do I desire?

Money, fame, paparazzi, all that BS? What is it, really, that I want?

And why is it I cannot love what I have?

I once said I'd rather be sane than creative. But is that the truth? Have I, by attempting to combat my depression, lost an essential part of myself? Am I the same Squelch who once wrote and acted, stayed up late, debated? What the hell happened to ME?

I do not know who I am anymore. My life is swallowed up in fatherhood, lawnmowing, grocery shopping. But would I even do anything productive if I didn't have those things?

I am a fraud. My fingers wanted to type, "I am a fraid," which is just one keystroke away. So I'm an afraid fraud. Afraid of... losing? Sitting back and making myself be nothing but a father? See, I understand that's a noble pursuit. I wouldn't mind, really I wouldn't, IF I REALLY BELIEVED IT WERE NOBLE.

This is why I wish I were stupider. Why I wish I hadn't been raised with all that "You are the most special person in the world" B.S. Guess what, Mom and Dad? I'm not. I'm average. Like everyone else. I'm just some guy who will be forgotten in a hundred years. I am not special anymore than anyone else is. I won't cure cancer. I won't write a book. I won't even finish drywalling the bathroom ceiling to my satisfaction, for crying out loud, because I can't get the hang of smoothing it out.

Why do we tell our kids this? Why do we so want to throw around the word "gifted"? I once read about a study in which there were four groups of kids. Two groups were considered "gifted," and two were normal, and within each set of two, one group was _told_ they were gifted and the others were told they were normal. In other words, in each set, there was one group that was lied to.

I sometimes wonder if my parents were told that I was gifted when I was just average. How about the pressure, huh? I hung out with kids who were taking CALCULUS in NINTH GRADE. These rich people jumping into Ivy League schools without breaking a sweat, and then my dad saying "Grades don't matter; what matters is how hard you try. What, you got a C? You're obviously not trying hard enough."

I hate myself when I feel this way. I'm a selfish S.O.B. who can't recognize how much he's on Easy Street. But I feel like I can't MOVE, damn it. I feel as though I peaked before I was married and now it's just downhill. I want to achieve! I want to be proud of what I'm doing! But my mind is wired the wrong way. Somehow, I believe that what I'm doing now does not have value. What am I? A caregiver. A man raising his son. That's valuable, right? So why don't I believe it? You could ghive me electroshock therapy and I still would call myself a failure because my name's not in the alumni magazine! But what, what, what? What woulod I consider success? Is there anything? What would I be proud of? There's always going to be someone better.

If anyone who actually knows me personally is reading this, rest assured that I'll be OK aftyer a good night's sleep. This is exhaustion and a bad day talking. But that doesn't mean I don't feel this even when I'm happy. There's still something missing. Whatever I may think will cure it--moving to New York, sending D to day care, no matter what--I'm just not built to be happy. I'm a lame-ass ugly kid being teased on the playground, now until my dying day, which I'm sure will be a long way from now, because the world is too cruel to simply put me out of my misery.

At moments like this, a terminal disease would seem like a gift. Of course, I do have a terminal disease. The doc gives me only seventy more years to live. That's one way of looking at it, isn't it? But somehow I don't think that'll give me the leeway to make grand trips and spend lots of money, which is the only "happiness equation" I haven't yet tried.

What a shallow asshole.

I suppose I'm crying out for either help or pity, in that I'm writing this to a public forum. I suppose this is another way of making my friends and family worry about me. Maybe I get off on that. But I started this blog as therapy. So here it is. Worry. Worry your pretty little heads off that Squelch isn't happy. Big news. When have I been happy? The happiest day of my life was D's birth. I try to remember the involuntary tears of joy as he was pushed into the world. A magical day. But it doesn't stick, because then I see him hitting me as I put him to bed, a little toddler striking out in the only way he knows how, and I see myself, vainly striking out at the world, a world that loves me if I only could allow it to do so. I see my mother, closing the door on me as I yell at her just before my college graduation. I see my father telling me to get out of the house after a bad argument. I see my wife, shocked and crying as I'm in one of my depressions. Rather like this one.

I cannot cry.

The tears don't come out, as if they know that my simple mood swings aren't enough to cry about. Tears, smarter than me.

Yet there is so much more I want to scream about. To scream, cry, drown my troubles in a vat of alcohol I cannot drink. Drown and dissolve my life until it looks as insignificant as it really is, a tiny speck in the bottom of the glass.

There was a fatal accident on the Beltway today. I was caught in the traffic. But I thought to myself, what if I were on the scene? What could I do? I once thought of becoming a volunteer EMT, but I allowed myself to be convinced that I didn't have the time to devote to it. So: nothing. I allowed myself to be convinced of my essential worthlessness, just as I allowed myself to be convinced against going to college in New York, just as I allowed myself to be convinced to try for another child. Yet, the buck stopped at my feet, did it not? I made my own decisions. I was the one who chickened out and took a safe job after college, rather than blindly auditioning for shows in Boston. Why did I allow that?

This is wrong--sick and wrong. I am not a fool. I know I have a fortunate life. I need to quit whining and get on with it. Accept that you are not Mozart, or even Salieri. Accept that you are not the most special person in the world. Just be. Exist. Live. No matter what. But, man, I want to cry! Why can't I cry? Cry for the loss of my dreams! They float somewhere in the sky, forver lost. I let go the string and they floated away. Dreams. I have no business having dreams anyway. My life is not my own anymore. I sold it long ago.

I could endure it all if I were still creative. But my stories are gone. There's no new tale to tell. My pen is dry. And all I have left is bile like this. And who wants to read bile?

I am floating up from my chair, looking at the screen, reading what I'vw written. It's time to get to bed and be ashamed of this in the morning.