Black thoughts at night

The torture goes on, neverending. I received a picture today from my dad. It shows him and my mom when they were dating, before he went off to Vietnam. I'll never have that. Not anything like that. Shit, it's all blackness! Blackness as far as I can see! I will get up tomorrow and spend all day at my desk, staring into the pit. I hate myself, I hate myself so goddamn much.

I found out another ex of mine is pregnant. Let's call her ... hmmm, let's call her the Goose. Heh. She was a trip ... my relationship with her was rocky, but passionate. It was too much at the end. I walked out on her, which might or might not have been a colossal mistake on my part — I suppose I'll never know. Anyway, she's engaged now, and occasionally I check her Facebook page (unbeknownst to her) to see what she's up to. Seems she's got a bun in the oven, har har.

Maybe I fucked up. Maybe it should have been mine. Who the fuck knows. She's off living her life. My ex-wife is off living her life, too — probably pregnant, or with kids. I'm far too scared to see for myself. The Swan is off having her life and dreams come true.

The Dove is, of course, still pining away for me. Shit. I wish she'd just let me go. I am stuck in my hole and will never be able to climb out.

A bullet in my head. That is literally all I can think of. Buying a gun, loading it, placing it against my temple, boom. All over. It's what ... nine and a half months from now? It seems weird that I'm actually going to do it. I mean, really: Nothing will get better. It's all hopeless. All utterly hopeless.

I have to go to sleep. Gotta get up tomorrow. Trudge through another day. My life is such a fucking lie. Death can't come quick enough. I pray — yes, I pray — that my death will come SOON, and preferably peacefully. A quick illness. Some unnoticed disease. I supposed a car wreck or an airplane crash would be okay. But I want the chance to say goodbye, if possible. Don't afflict some other worthy person, God. Don't hurt people like my mom. HURT ME. KILL ME. I NEED TO DIE.

Spare me from having to do the deed myself. Just end it. End. The. Fucking. Pain.

Update...

So ... yeah. Haven’t written in awhile. Sigh. Work crap, mainly. Also, I was at a point where I was so damn depressed every day when I came home from work that I just plopped down in front of the TV to play video games. That’s been a nice distraction. I am nearly at 35 percent completion on Gran Turismo 4 (yeah, I’m a few years behind on games). Being the methodical sort, I’m aiming for 100 percent completion.

I actually managed to get 100 percent completion on GT3 — well, technical 100 percent completion. The game had some sort of bug that prevented you from getting 100 percent; I forget where it maxed out at. But GT4, as far as I can tell, has no such bug, so 100 percent should be doable, if a bit of a slog. For one, there’s the issue of a *real-time 24 hours of Le Mans* race. Two, actually: One with the original circuit, and a second with the newer circuit that has the chicanes on the Mulsanne straight.

Oh, and workouts. Obviously haven’t been logging those, but I’ve been keeping at them, and I guess I’m getting results, such as they are. Here’s a typical workout day for me now, to show you how I’ve progressed:

50 x 4 pushups

75 x 2 crunches, 25 lb. weight

12 x 2 arm curls, 25 lb. weights

9 x 2 arm curls, 30 lb. weights

7 x 2 arm curls, 35 lb. weights

45 minutes on the elliptical

I’m about at the point where I need to go up on the weights for my arm curls. Oh, and I need to start wearing gloves — damn grip pattern on the dumbells is starting to cause blisters on my hands.

Oh, and I’ve tried to shift my workouts to the morning. That seems to give me more energy throughout the day. And it gives me more time to play video games when I get home! :)

Right now, I’m visiting my mom. That’s another thing I’ve been dealing with. Seems my mom had a seizure a few weeks ago. They had to cut open her skull for a biopsy, and the results came back this week: It’s brain cancer. The “good” news is that they caught it early, so it’s relatively treatable. She should live a few more years yet. The bad news is, well, it’s brain cancer. Oh, and she has to take anti-seizure medicine now and she can’t drive. She might be forced into early retirement. The works. I’m flying up to spend a few days with her.

Heh. That horrible terminal disease I want to develop? Looks like it hit my mom. Poetic, huh? Shit. God mocks me.

Anyway, while I’m visiting my mom, The Swan will probably enter into our discussions. I am still ever tortured by thoughts of her. I have discussed my feelings with my mom, though obviously with something far less than the fine-grained detail I resort to here. No talk of suicide, for instance.

Ah, yes. Suicide: How goes the darkness? As bad as ever. The Swan has loomed particularly large lately. It’s funny: I can go months without thinking about her. Then she’ll suddenly stumble back into my conscience and I’ll spend weeks obsessing about her. It’s been particularly bad lately. Every night — every single night — when I go to sleep, I am tortured by the same thing: I am assaulted with visions of the happiness and fulfillment she is experiencing without me, seeing all the happy and contented years she has in front of her. I see the guy who finally manages to get her to the altar — he’s impossibly perfect, better than me in every way, able to offer her things I never can. He fulfills her completely and gives her nothing but years of happiness.

Over and over. Those images, over and over, playing in an endless loop. And all I want is for it to stop, stop, stop. I want it all gone from my mind. I just want to push a button or flip a switch and completely turn it off. And then, over and over, the same thought: Putting a gun to my temple, pulling the trigger, painting the walls with my brain. It alternates: The Swan. Pain. Suicide. The Swan. Pain. Suicide. Over and over.

I wish I could say I am exaggerating for effect, but this is a literal description of every single night for me. It just keeps repeating until I sink into sleep.

Some nights the burden is so heavy that I can’t face it, and I have to get drunk to numb the sharp stabbing pain. Most nights I just endure it. Even another woman doesn’t make it go away. The other night I was sleeping with the Dove (Sigh. It’s complicated...), and even with my arms around her, peacefully spooning with her, that damn loop started playing again.

I constantly try to imagine what it would feel like: Suicide. One’s thoughts inevitably drift to what would happen afterward — how one’s friends and family would react, how the funeral would go, that sort of thing. But I have to keep cutting off those thoughts, because I clearly wouldn’t be there to experience them. Instead, I force myself back to the question: What would it feel like? And all I can think of is that one second I am consumed with pain, the next second...what? Nothing, I think. The pain just stops. Everything else stops, too, but that’s the important part: No more suffering.

Fuck my useless life

I'm really gonna do it. I mean, that just occurred to me tonight: I am really gonna blow my brains out come May 2012.

Shit. Like I even care. Life is a tunnel of darkness and sadness interrupted by brief flashes of happiness and light. I had one of those with the Swan. Apparently I gave the Dove that kind of feeling for a little while. But it never lasts. It never fucking lasts. The Gods LAUGH at us. They laugh at our suffering, laugh at our pain.

FUCK THEM.

FUCK GOD. FUCK LIFE.

There is NO fucking reason to live with this suffering, and I WILL fucking end it. Oh, I know: In the larger scheme of things, my suffering is nothing. How many millions or billions would give everything to trade places with me! But here I quote Johnson:

"How small of all that human hearts endure

That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!"

I was born to be miserable and no change in my physical state will cure it. Fuck, is the Swan came to me tomorrow and pledged herself to me for all eternity, I'd probably still hate myself.
 

Why should a worthless sack of shit like myself endure? Am I not, in the larger scheme of things, a detriment? My self-loathing is a cancer upon the gene pool of my species. Should it not be rooted out and burned to the quick? Should not the confused and self-sabotaging neurons breathed into being by my DNA not be torn down and topple, razed utterly, and plowed over with salt, never to rise again?

If man is to be noble and good, and to advance ever upward, I must cut myself loose. It's kind of brilliant, actually — my cancerous genes forced to extinction by the memetic dictates of some higher class of selfish genes. The fingerprints of my betters will never be found upon the knife that slits my throat; the only impressions to be found will be my own. Genius — the beautiful and mighty are absolved of all sin, and yet their glory advances.

Yeah, well fuck them. Go ahead and celebrate, sez I. I am food for worms. I am the dust of the cosmos. I am the food that will feed your offspring a million generations hence.

I am merely accelerating the process which will crown the gifted, the beautiful, the great. It is their world anyway; I want no part of it.
 

They can have my body, my cells, my molecules and atoms. But the part of me that is me will not be there. He will have unlocked his cage and run away. And you might move planets and galaxies with the flick of your fingers, beautiful ones, but the me that is writing this will be forever, forever beyond you.

Things just keep getting worse...

My mom had a seizure today. They are not sure how serious it is.

They will be doing tests tomorrow that should give them a better picture. In the meantime, I'm very scared.

Kill me now, God. Just kill me now.

Daily workout log

No workout yesterday. Today I killed myself (figuratively speaking):

35 x 4 pushups

70 x 2 crunches, 15 lbs. weight

15 x 2 arm curls, 25 lbs.

10 x 2 arm curls, 30 lbs.

5 x 2 arm curls, 35 lbs.

45 minutes very intense minutes on the elliptical machine.

I almost collapsed when I finished on the elliptical.

Today would have been my 11th wedding anniversary. I was trying to punish myself. I thought about writing the Swan, but didn't. My hard workout was also an attempt to punish myself for that thought...

An item of no value at all

All that ruminating the other day on the nature of social markets has left me deeply depressed. Why should I wait any longer? I said I was going to wait until May 27, 2012 to kill myself, but really, it’s pointless. Events just cascade logically toward that ultimate denouement. I can’t see any reasonable path that’s not going to end up there. Will my life really change so much?

The future is not very hard to fathom. Here is what will happen with the Swan: She is a thin, beautiful woman in her 30s who has never been married and has no kids. She is now back living in our hometown.

She is intensely desirable. In short order, she will meet a well-to-do gentleman a few years older than her. While other guys his age were off getting married and having families, this guy spent his 20s and 30s focusing obsessively on his career, and he has done rather well for himself. He’s now ready to settle down and is looking for a lovely, thin woman to hang on his arm, to have his children, and to look after his household.

He’s much too proper and respectable to snatch up some twentysomething young trophy wife; he’ll be looking for someone closer to him in age — yet still hot. The Swan fits the bill perfectly. And how will she be able to refuse? He’ll be a nice enough fellow — not some asshole. He may not be terribly handsome, but he’ll be attractive enough. And most importantly, he’ll be able to offer a lifetime of comfort and security, both for herself and her kids.

There will be a big wedding and a big house. She’ll have a nice car and lots of nice things. He will take her to many nice places, where she will be looked upon with envy and admiration. All of her problems will be wiped away with his checkbook. And she will live happily ever after, Amen. That is how things are for all beautiful women. They are kept and adored.

And fat chance for me to find another gorgeous woman to take her place and make me forget her. I’ve been looking on dating websites for the past couple of weeks and it is beginning to make me terribly cynical. I spent much of today at the park watching people; it’s Fourth of July weekend, so the crowds are out in force. And that has only redoubled my cynicism.

There is nothing, not a goddamn thing about love that is chance or magical. On the contrary, it’s brutally, depressingly predictable. There is no accident, no unfathomable reason why things pan out the way they do. Life is a raw market in which the most blessed among us are the most rewarded. Want a gorgeous woman? What have you got to offer? What have *I* got to offer? What resources, what gifts do I possess that I can redeem for the beauty I ache for?

I am not particularly good-looking. I do not have a great body. So I cannot trade on my appearance. Personality? My personality might best be described as serviceable. I am not charismatic and not very talkative. The subjects that engage my interests are things that most people find quite dull. The women who DO find them interesting are invariably those inhuman straight-A Master Race types that seem to have come out of a laboratory. They are simultaneously astoundingly attractive, brilliant, driven, and live exciting, active lives. Good grief.

So I’m lacking in looks and personality. Maybe my hobbies and interests can make up for it? Maybe I’m a fun, active guy to be around. Again, nope. I don’t play any sports and am not active outdoors. I don’t have any special, amazing skills. Shit, I like to work puzzles and build scale models (well, I used to build scale models; I’ll probably take up the hobby again if I ever live in a place that allows me to set up a little workshop). Let me know if there are any lovely ladies out there getting wet at the thought of that.

Well then there’s always money, right? Ha, ha. Shit, I have no money and no realistic hope of making any. So there goes that.

So what do I have to offer? Well, I’m a kind and decent guy. I’m very family-oriented and I love kids. I’m romantic and caring. I’m stable and honest.

I’d also add that I have a job, but I’m worried about that, frankly, because the line of work I’ve focused on for my entire working career is going to go away, and I have no idea what I will transition into. I’m terrified of that, since I’m not sure what I’m going to do to put food on the table. And unemployment is something women find repulsive.

But let’s put that aside for now. In short, I’m dull and average, and have nothing I can offer a beautiful woman, be it the Swan or anyone else.

Oh, I realize I’m being terribly unfair to women here, because not all women are beautiful like the Swan. And there is a whole world out there of nice, dull, average girls (the Dove, for instance) who would be perfect for a nice, dull, average guy like me, and I ought to learn to be happy with that, and don’t I know all those average women wish they could have a super-awesome guy, too, and you should learn to be realistic and accept your limitations and blah blah blah fucking blah.

And here’s why I really ought to hate the Swan, because you know something? There was a time when I WOULD have been perfectly fucking happy with all that. I had learned to serenely accept my fate and was peaceful and content and would have been happy to be with a simple, nice girl like the Dove. But then that BITCH came roaring back into my life and made me taste the sweet, sweet dreams I had never had the courage to dream before. When I kissed her and made out with her, I could not imagine any woman I could want more. When I thought of the mother of my children, I wanted, God, I so wanted it to be her. I wanted her to tuck my children in and kiss them goodnight. I wanted the minivan and the soccer practice and the trips to Disney World and the crying and the fussing with car seats and wiping up messes to all be with her. She made it all so magical.

Once I’d tasted that perfection, I was ruined. Nothing else would ever be good enough. I mean, if I am going to give my life to somebody, the Swan is the minimum I will accept.

But that won’t be how it will play out for me. If I go on living, I will disappear into the faceless mass at the center of the bell curve. My joys will be small, my dreams will be small — my LIFE will be small. I don’t mind that, necessarily. There are many small things I can tolerate. The love I give my life to cannot be one of them. It must be large and overflowing. It must make me a stronger, better person and must call forth my noblest instincts.

If I cannot have that, I cannot go on living. I cannot live knowing the Swan is out there in the world, having her dreams come true, while I continue to struggle with failure and disappointment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead: Mock my stupid, pedestrian concerns. Boo-hoo for me, with all the other awful things in the world, I am tortured by the fact that I cannot have a beautiful girl. Deplore me, excoriate me, tell me how narrow and shallow and shameful I am, blah blah blah.

Here's the thing, though: I agree with you. I can step back and look at myself dispassionately and see how pathetic, how sorry I really am. And that just makes the case even more: Why the fuck should I stay in the gene pool? Seriously, what is there for me to contribute? What to I contribute to the world, to society, to the greater good? My one contribution I can see is that I love and am loved by my family. Shit. That's a reason to go on living with all this pain?

I spent today at work, trudging through my tasks, staring at the screen and feeling lonely and very, very sad. I tried to imagine it ever getting better, but every path to "better" goes through having more money, a better job, more authority — being something other than an anonymous, replaceable cog in a vast corporate engine. Not even a special cog, at that: If I break, the machine does not stop. It grinds on, oblivious to such a minor hiccup, and I'm quickly and efficiently replaced.

Beautiful women want hard-charging, ambitious men or pretty-boy studs, and I'm neither. About all I can do is sit here inside my shell and observe the world and make pithy, readable observations about it. Big fucking deal. The only thing I've got to offer is a lot of love for the right woman, and the desire and capacity to be a good and decent husband and father. Women bitch and bitch and say they can never find guys like that, but we're a dime a dozen. What they really mean is they can't find a guy like that who is good looking, rich, or exciting.

But I don't blame them — shit, they're just following their biological imperatives, the same as me. Why SHOULDN'T the Swan enjoy a nice rich husband who will take care of her, if she can get it? I am certainly never going to reject beautiful women just because less-beautiful women are less of a hassle to deal with. I have an intense, gnawing need for beauty. I need it so badly that I can taste it. It flays my mind constantly. If that thirst must forever be unslaked, I will stop it, I will end the misery, I will send a bullet into my cranium, cease feeling, and I'll see you fuckers again at the end of the universe.

Daily workout log

30 x 4 pushups

60 x 2 crunches, 15 lb. weight

10 arm curls, 25 lbs.

7 arm curls, 30 lbs.

4 arm curls, 35 lbs.

45 minutes on the elliptical machine.

Did pretty good on weight loss this week. Hooray for me.