My Miserable Mid-Life Crisis

WARNING: This blog uses a naughty word. Read at your own peril.

I spent a sleepless night some time back fretting. And pacing.

I gave up caffeine for Lent (no, not really... just gave it up) several weeks ago... and have been feeling pretty good. Usually sleep better, but the other night was difficult. I was on duty, and when I went to bed, I tossed and turned all night, and never slept. Heart pounding, mind racing... all the symptoms of acute caffeine poisoning without the actual caffeine. :(

About my 43rd lap around the apparatus bay (it's about the size of 1/2 of a football field), it dawned on me why they call it a "Mid-Life Crisis." I'm mid-life. And I'm in crisis. And I have no idea how I got to this point in my perpetual train-wreck of a life. Well, that's not totally true. I do, I guess. I got here by one heaping failure after another.

In my youth, I had wide-eyed hopes. Dreams. Aspirations. Goals. And I don't think I've accomplished many... if any... of them in the decades since. It always amuses me when my wife (or anyone else) talks about my "many accomplishments." I don't see them. I see 51 years of unwavering failure. 51 years of regrets, heartache, sadness and sorrow. I see children who I love with all that I am, who no longer speak to me, or want me to be their father. I see grandchildren that I'll probably never have the chance to know... because of nothing more than the mean-spiritedness of their parents. Did *I* raise them that way? Was I really that bad of a dad? What crime did I commit besides trying desperately to keep my emotional head above water to merit being treated like this?

I'm truly baffled here... my step children's father physically, verbally, and emotionally abused them for years and made their lives a living Hell before he ultimately took his own life and abandoned them forever. And yet, most of them still love him and miss him... and despise me. I love my children with all my heart... and they want nothing to do with me. What's wrong with this picture? Oh, wait. I already know. I'm a loser. And a colossal disappointment. I tried to recover from the unbelievable pain of losing my family and my children when I went through my last divorce by pouring myself into "doing it right" with the next family who was unfortunate enough to be in my life-path. The first kids resented me for not being there for them... the new set of kids resented me for.. being there for them. Lose-lose all the way around. Now neither set speaks to me.

Around my 67th lap around the apparatus bay, I came to the realization that not only do I have no clue what went so terribly wrong in my life, but I have no clue where I'm going or how to fix it, either. I'm kind of like Tom Hanks at the end of "Castaway," where he finds himself at a crossroads on a very lonely stretch of road... trying to decide which way to go (except for the fact that he has money, no kids, and his whole life ahead of him). One way leads, hopefully, to happiness. One way to continued failure and despair. And then there's the knowledge.. the SURE knowledge... that no matter WHAT road I take... it won't be the one I want.

Everything that I've touched in my life, with very few exceptions, has turned to crap. Everything. Marriages, children, professions, possessions, interpersonal relationships... doesn't really matter. It's all a colossal steaming pile. I spend most days trying to figure out what great cosmic competition my poor wife failed so as to be stuck with ME as the consolation prize. I truly feel desperately sorry for her. She is stuck with me, and more than likely BECAUSE of me, has no friends. Of course, neither do I. Not really. Haven't had for years.

Oh, now don't get your panties in a wad. I have long-distance-we-really-like-you-because-we've-never-met-you-in-person friends. But they don't count. Not really. The only real friends that count are the ones that are actually, physically HERE for you. The kind who can sense that you're in pain, and who take you out to lunch so they can kick your butt back into normalcy. The kind who can quietly listen to you pour your heart and soul out, and who have a tear of empathy in their eye when you're done... but who don't then try to "fix" you.

I haven't had a lot of luck with Best Friends. The best friend I ever had turned on me 12 years ago. Had a traffic ticket I hadn't paid... slipped my mind. He was the city manager. So one day, out of the blue, he had 2 detectives come to arrest me in front of my house.. handcuffs and all... in front of my children. That was his intentional plan. For a traffic ticket. Fortunately for me, his wife called me and tipped me off, and I scampered down to City Hall to pay it before returning home that day. When I got home, there they were... waiting for me. They (and he, who was probably waiting in the bushes with binoculars, I'm sure) were truly disappointed that I had paid the ticket. And this man was my best friend for over 16 years. We hung out together, worked together, went camping together... we did everything together. He was the brother I never had. And he turned on me in the blink of an eye... for what reason I still don't know to this day. That's a succinct encapsulation of my life so far. Loss. Betrayal. More loss. More betrayal. Both being betrayed, and betraying others. Having your guts ripped out on a regular basis.. both by things done to you, and things you know you have done to others you love... for reasons not even you really understand.

Tried counseling... a bunch of times. Went all the way through Impact... a "self-realization-find-the child-within-through-three-different-sets-of-three-20-hour-days-of-sleep-deprivation-intensive-group-therapy"program that managed to simultaneously strip you of your dignity, your emotional baggage AND your life savings in one fell swoop. Felt good for a while. For a while, I felt like I actually had some worth as a human being. And then I woke up. Then it all came crashing back. Went through 6 years of therapy during my second marriage after which the therapist actually threw me out. Told me nothing was wrong with me anymore. And so, of course, more therapy during my third. Boy, THAT was a trip.

Poor Zoobie therapist at LDS Social Services. What a lost little lamb. LOL!!!! He didn't know WHAT to do with me. He was a Bishopric Wannabe, died-in-the-wool-wearing-the-uniform product of LDS Higher Education. He was adorable. :) This guy would've looked at a can of Diet Coke the way most people would look at a bag of uncut Cocaine.

He came up with a great therapeutic "assignment." He had me list those things that I had "lost" in my life. 2 1/2 pages of single-spaced itemized heartbreak later, he stared at me with those "wow, they never prepared me for THIS" eyes, and said, "I don't know how you're still standing upright." No shit, Sherlock. Me neither. That's why I'm HERE. I honestly believe that by the time I was done with him, HE was in therapy.

I discovered one valuable thing during that foray into the Jungian forest though... came in the form of an epiphamy right in the middle of listening to a droning clot of graduate school textbook 'talk-therapy' wisdom: I'm angry. As soon as the thought struck me, I started weeping inconsolably. Kinda freaked Zoobie-boy out. I think he was trying desperately to remember what masterful thing he had just said that had triggered such a huge "break-through." I was ANGRY.


I know. Pretty profound. And not just your everyday "My bra's on backwards" annoyance or petty irritability, mind you... but Cosmic Angry. Angry at God. Angry at life. Angry at the poor waitress at Denny's who had the audacity to give me eggs that were over easy instead of over medium. Angry at people I didn't even know. Angry at the frustrating nothingness that is Hell-bent on cheating me out of a cogent thing to be angry AT. Just all-consuming anger. And not the "over-the-top" sociopathic shoot-you-in-the-head-road-rage angry. The more insideous kind. The kind that's always right there... smoldering just under the surface, ready for one more playful shriek to trigger your already-metal-on-metal sensitivities and meltdown. Angry when I see anonymous best friends laughing, playing, spending time with each other... knowing that I'll never have that in my life.

Wow. This is waxing morose. I'm even depressing ME, and I started OUT depressed. That's quite a feat! But I digress.

The only thing worse than the anger is the feeling... of nothing at all. An all-encompassing numbness, mixed with a generous helping of emptiness. It's the feeling of overwhelming abandonment. Of isolation. Of desolation. Of... hopelessness.

I guess that's it in a nutshell. Hopelessness. Hopelessness secondary to Infinite Cosmic Anger. Sounds like a diagnosis from House, or a pronouncement from the Genie in Aladdin, I can't make up my mind which. The feeling that no matter what you do, you won't be able to "fix" anything. Ever.

Your stomach will never stop hurting. You'll never stop feeling tired and weary and beaten up. You'll never get a home of your own. You'll never get a job. You'll never pay off your back taxes. You'll never be out of debt. Your children will never love you. Your wife will never respect you. Your Bishop will never look at you with anything more than nervous discomfort before he skittles off in another direction... ANY direction... away from you.

You'll never be happy. Ever. Worlds without end.

The ever-pervasive "I'm-So-Done-With-This-Life-I-Just-Wanna-Go-Home" hopelessness has helped me understand what both Hell and Satan are like. As awful and overwhelming as it is to realize that NONE of your hopes, dreams, or yearnings will ever be achieved, it is second only to the soul-stabbing misery whose hunger for company seems to rise in direct proportion to the amount of pain one is in.

OK. I better stop. Stepping in front of a commuter train is looking pretty damn good to me right now.