Merry Fucking Christmas

This Christmas is going to be awkward. My in laws have just begun divorce proceedings. Whee, that makes a great topic for the dinner table after exchanging gifts. "So, your marriage of 30 years is down the tubes? I am sorry to hear that. Pass the gravy, please?"

I don't quite know how to respond to this. My family is far from perfect, but my mom and dad are together and have always been together. They may have hunted dinosaures together back in the day. They still are wandering around the North West Territories together. And I thought the same of my in laws. But there was always something not being said around the table, the missing words an undercurrent to all that was being said. I have come to know that my mom is unique in dealing with things as they are in a family situation. Dad can hide his thoughts a bit, but will gently try to find the source of the problem. And I get pissed off with dealing with only symptoms.

In this case, it is not appropriate for me to go digging for the truth. I have no real clue why my in laws have split up. But, I don't think that the split will actually solve any problems. I know there was no infidelity, no abuse, no concrete reason I can find for them to have gone there separate ways.

I am left confused and unable to sate my curiosity. That is the root of my discomfort. But the symptoms rough as well. With whom does my sister in law stay when she comes up? Where will Christmas dinner be? If my lady has difficulties that she needs a parent for, where does she go? Will the other parent be upset for not being picked? Many of these questions have been resolved for this Christmas, but they will have to be revisited for every holiday from now on.

Questions without answers. That is the untidy part of my world these days.

Thanks for listening.

Angsty Poetry

As I crash into the void of my heart
A thought occurs:
If this is nothing,
Why does it hurt?

Sex and Drugs

Sex should be fun. Sex should not be something to hide from, not something to cause one to cringe away. However, due to what has happened with my lady and the meds that I am on, that is what sex has become for us.

The brief moments of sensual connection are replaced by fear on my part. I am afraid that I am pushing to hard for sex, that I am moving to fast and will trigger a flashback in my lady. But I deserve something physical, right? I am her lover.

She is afraid that if something does not happen, I will be disapointed and leave her. Then, the dissapointment she feels with herself sets in. "Why can't I do this? It is natural and good, right? But I feel all disgusting and ashamed."

And so the situation spirals out of control. I want something natural, cannot have it and pressure her without meaning to. My lady feels the pressure, tries to act in concert with what she is feeling and realises that she cannot because she feels broken and unworthy. And unless one of us is in a perceptive mood, this spiral can only end poorly.

The most frustrating part of this is that my lady wants some good lovin'. She does get aroused, but the feelings confuse and frustrate her. She is unable to act on those feelings or to acknowlage them as being normal. And my meds make it difficult to "get off". So, those rare times when we can be intimate, she can end up feeling even worse because I do not finish.

Thanks for listening.

Of Muck and Mire

Over the last three days, I was doing a good job. I came home and the good feeling left me. When I have been away for a time at work, I sometimes have a rough time adjusting to being home again. My lady has been sick to her stomach for some time now and is a bit touched in the head from her last therapy session. And I am exhausted. If you can avoid it, never go tramping about the swamps of northern Ontario in November. Try to keep your sanity and knock your face into a wall. It is less painful and is over faster.

I don't know if because I am a big boy with small feet that I sink into swamps easier, but I spent most of Tuesday with two boots full of cold water tramping about looking for snow concealed muck pits. My toes may never forgive me. Add to that, I was having difficulty eating. I never managed to stir my lazy carcass out of bed with enough time for breakfast and I worked through the lunches. I had big dinners, but I missed my three squares a day for no good reason. All this, plus being away from my support makes maintaining my mental health difficult.

So, the Muck and Mire of my title is not only in the real world, but in my mind as well. I am beginning to want to write black poetry and my wrists are itching to be scratched open to let the bad out. I have been putting one foot in front of the other with out a plan for too long, I think. Now is the time look to the horizon, to get the itch to move out of the mire and on to other things.

Fair winds

Meds and Control

I hate medications. Their value and contribution to society cannot be understated and the increase in my quality of life has been substantially improved by meds. However, I hate taking them. It feels too much like allowing control of my body to be passed onto a chemical. This reluctance to allow chemicals into my life also contributes to an irrational reluctance to eat and drink. I am Goonius, I need no food nor water!

This whole feeling of helplessness in the face of chemicals has also led me to be somewhat contemptuous of some safety concerns around chemicals. I am Goonius, I can take it. Given that my job occasionally takes me into some nasty industrial areas, this is not a good concern. This struck home to me when my brother, who has very similar feelings towards medicine and chemicals as me, caught arsenic poisoning in his place of employment. His work at the time involved cleaning up arsenic and he would then smoke, inhaling the arsenic on his hands into his lungs. Now, the company he is working for has regular arsenic tests, so this situation was caught before it could become a real health problem, but this has changed my outlook on chemicals in general and pharmacology in particular. I realize my meds are not taking control of me, they are allowing me to take control. And safety is always the priority.

Changes in Life; Changes in Me

My lady continues to improve. Her strength and determination are an inspiration to me. I, however, am devolving somewhat. If you have been reading this rant for a bit now, you will know that my lady has been going through some rough times lately. She is strong and improving, but little things get her down sometimes. And our sex life is... complicated and rare (but improving and exciting).

Yet, I am finding myself more and more run down by work. I am attempting to assert myself at work, but it does not come naturally to negotiate with authority. Generaly, I have been a good little cog in large machine. I work as I have always worked; push untill I break. That is no longer going to be my operating model, and the bosses here are having some difficulty coming to terms with that. These assertions are not made easier by me wanting to loose my cool or beginning to stutter as I approach a the key point I am trying to make. But I am making these points and becoming more confident. I have managed to secure vacation time longer than a long weekend this summer for the first time scince my honeymoon five years ago (not counting time off for crazy). I am improving, but I see that I have a long way to go.

Thanks for listening,

Goonius Maximus

Confessions of a Nerd.

Has anyone heard of Star Fleet Battles? (crickets) It is a board game I played in my misspent youth, based on the original Star Trek series. It is one of the most complecated games around. I personaly still have a 3" binder of rules (and I don't have all of them). After some heated arguments atempting to resolve the rules, the game was abandoned by my associates and I. I have discovered a lighter version of Star Fleet Battles called Federation Commander. And I have fallen in love with it.

The game manages to keep the flow of Star Fleet Battles while losing the many complications that bogged down the game system. I am really enjoying this game. Now, I just need to con some friends into coming out and playing a fleet action...

Self Worth

I have fought to be where I am. I have a good job, good chances for promotion. I have a wife who is on the mend in a most enjoyable way, and I still feel shattered. I don’t like that. It feels like I am becoming less instead of more, shirking rather than rising to the occasion. I am attempting to rise. But, there is no buoyancy in me. It escaped, fled rather than play with me.

My soul is hurt and I cannot find the wound. And the wound does not matter. It is the scar that matters. I am a good employee. I am not afraid of hard work. I am a good husband and dog owner. I am a good brother and son. I have many skills to go with my flaws. I am told that my good bits out weigh the bad bits. I must prove this to myself in order to overcome this.

I am a good person. I am worth something.

Seeing What You Have

Good things are coming to me. It has taken some time for these good things to be realised or appreciated, but they are arriving. I have a job in which they have let me be as messed up as possible with out criminal charges, and they still want me. I have a good, growing and spreading group of friends. They are literally from coast to coast to (almost) coast. My lady is continuing improving her attitude and is becoming more … intimate.

The difficulty is that my life still feels stuck in stasis, held in place or cuffed to something large and heavy. I don’t feel the motion of my life, but if I look back I can see improvements. Sandra is becoming quite the tease, which is fun. But, at work, were I am having some difficulty shaking loose from the materials manager. I am trying to spring free of him, but as he has been unable to keep any other techs, and I have become “the guy” in his mind. So, I have been getting into mine closures and hydrology. And I think I have managed to impress other people in other departments in the company, so hopefully I will shake loose now.

Thanks for listening.