I’m doing okay
Last week there were several people who pointed out to me on and offline that it’s been a while since I blogged about my feelings. I was flattered mostly, but also flummoxed.
With the world as it is now, that anyone thinks enough about my take on anything or anyone to read The Breaking Point is humbling.
I trust that most people understand that my words here are a snapshot of what’s on my plate at various points in time. I am not always moved to discuss what’s going on in my mind about me. When I am, it isn’t according to schedule. The best I can do is to write about such when the mood strikes.
I haven’t experienced any one feeling enough to talk about it here or offline lately. I’ve felt good, not so good and bad in combination for roughly the past month or so. I should be abundantly thankful for all that I have and don’t have, but from day-to-day I do okay. When I tell people that in response to, ‘How are you?’ the next question is almost always, ‘Is everything okay?’ I appreciate the concern, but isn’t that what I just said?
On Friday, a guy I know asked me how things were going. This was after he practically tripped over himself to come speak to me even though I was in the middle of a conversation with someone else. I smirked and gave him a sarcastic “thumbs up,” but I wanted to hit him in his throat.
He couldn’t care less if I was broke or ballin’. I know this because he had an opportunity to help me out when my forecast was cloudy and he did nothing. He didn’t look out and he didn’t have the decency to let me know anything one way or the other. I called him. I e-mailed him. I even reached out to him via a mutual acquaintance to see what was up. He played me like I was a bill collector.
But we’re out and now he wants to chop it up? Walking up talking about, “There’s some talent in here tonight.” Dawg, seriously? I was actually in a good mood but it was still all I could do to look in his general direction. My best guess is that he felt guilty and was looking for some form of absolution, maybe in the form of daps or a shug. I couldn’t go.
For people who do actually care, though, just know that I’m okay.
It may be that “okay” is the space I’m in because I feel a void. I don’t know what I’m missing, but here I am nonetheless. I’ve been here before, and quite honestly, I derive pleasure from a vague sense of emptiness. It’s come to largely define my existence.
Every now and again I take myself through the, ‘It would be nice to have a wife,’ mental exercise in which I play out how life as a husband would be. I imagine that it would be nice, but what if marriage weren’t fulfilling?
Out of the blue last week it dawned on me to adopt an infant and become a single father. I shot that idea down once I remembered that I work long hours and that I don’t even want to see me every day, much less a helpless baby.
I think I’ll resume painting watercolours.