Maybe I Don't Deserve To Be A Dad

I wish I was a better person. I'm tired of trying to be a better person. I'm tired of wishing I was a better person. Bad things keep happening to me and in the back of my mind I feel like I deserve it. The mistakes that I make every day in my life somehow justify the bad things that keep happening. I'm unhappy so it must be because of bad decisions that I've made. I'm always trying to do the right thing and the responsible thing but things haven't ended up any better for me than people who don't. I just want to give up. I try so hard to please other people but in the end it doesn't help. The reality is that there are very few people who like me. So why do I try so hard?

I'm Back!!

I haven't written anything in a while because I was starting to feel pretty good for a while there. I really wanted to believe that it was going to last and that I wouldn't find myself back in the darkness staring at that screen. That would have been nice. I don't know how to define OK anymore. Is OK when I'm not thinking about the fact that I've lost the opportunity to be a father and do all of the other things that I watch so many guys take for granted as a dad? Or is it when I can think about it and not get really pissed of and want to put my hand through a wall? There are days lately that I feel like I'm doing good and things are just rolling off of me until someone pushes that one button. That one button at work seems to be when people complain to me about prices. I am a manager of one store in a chain. I have absolutely no control over the pricing of items and yes I know that Walmart is cheaper than us. We are talking about Walmart. They aren't known for their high prices. What do they expect me to say? They don't want me to explain and I certainly am not going to apologize. I didn't do it. Where do they expect this conversation to go? I give what I think is a reasonable answer and they end up just staring at me. I just want to scream back, "I can't just lower a price and keep my job so GO AWAY!" Instead I just say, "Let me know if you need anything else," and I end up in the back room kicking some empty boxes. That's when I know that I'm still not back to normal. I used to be laid back. I miss that.

The Dark Can Be Lonely When We're Together

Today my wife told me that she's been depressed lately thinking about the baby.  I sat with her on the couch and listened but in my head I was thinking thank god!  I don't know if it's because I was relieved that I'm not alone of if because I could tell she's been down and now she's opening up again to me.  Recently I've seen her acting down but I couldn't get her to tell me what was wrong.  That's so frustrating for me because I hate to feel shut out.  Part of that is my fault.  I know that at times I do the typical male thing and try to fix problems when all she wants me to do is listen.  Now I think she doesn't want to tell me about what's bothering her unless there is a possible solution or some new information.  The reality is that I do want to know what's going on or I fear the worst.  I think at times men just need to be told, "I need to talk and I don't want you to try to fix it or give me advice."  I don't seem to know when it's that kind of conversation until I've already upset her by throwing my thoughts at her.  I don't like that I do that. It's just a compulsion.  I told her that she can always talk to me even though she may think it will bring me down.  I hope she does.  Sitting in the dark can be lonely if we don't talk.

It All Feels Pointless

Everything just feels pointless. I work my ass off at my job but I don't feel like it matters. Best case scenario, I make more money. So what. I don't have a family to support. My wife makes enough to support herself if she needs to. I make enough to live in a decent place and buy the things I want to buy. As I thought about my life and the direction I was going there was always a family in the plan. Now what? Do I just go on like this forever. What meaning is there to my life if I don't have anyone to remember me. Now I just feel like I'm going through the motions everyday. I remember when I felt present and that was enough for me. I could wake up and just enjoy the day. Now I'm constantly aware of what is missing from each day. Even the good days don't seem to be enough.

I've been in a little better mood lately. It may just be because of the better weather or perhaps I just needed a little distance from all of those bad memories of March. No matter what it is it still isn't enough to make me forget. When my wife and I were out shopping today I had another baby staring at me. This happens a lot. In fact it happens so much that people who know me have mentioned it. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's the way I look at them. Most people get this look of excitement when they see a baby that I'm sure they become accustomed to. The look on my face may be different and perhaps puzzling. I don't know. Seeing babies is still hard for me. I wish it wasn't. I have to be ready to spend time with my new niece in July. I don't want it to make me sad. That would not be fair to my brother and his wife not to mention my niece.

One Heck of a Bobmshell

My wife doesn't want to have kids. That's what she said last night anyway. We haven't talked about it much after losing the baby. She's scared to get pregnant again and that I knew. This conversation was different. What she actually said was that the last few days she has been thinking about it. This surprised her because for the past year she's been thinking that she doesn't want kids. Then she added that she's probably just feeling that way because her period is starting and she's emotional. Her statement was so matter of fact that I didn't know how to respond. I do want to have kids and I didn't know that she had already decided that she didn't want to try again. We tried for several years before she actually got pregnant and now she acts like she's given up. I would feel better if she didn't sound so rational when she said it as if it was a logical position. It makes me think feeling of maybe wanting kids is going to pass. It worries me that I didn't already know this. Major events in a person's life will change them. Know I'm starting to worry that this is changing us in different directions. I've been working out more, meditating, watching what I eat and anything else I can do to exert some control over my life. She has been partying more, searching for a full time teaching job less and focusing on anything fun. I'm acting like an old man and she's acting like college student. I hope we both find our ways back to the middle.

The Squeeky Wheel

I remember sitting in that dark room staring at the monitor for the ultrasound. This was the second time that we had done this. During the ultrasound the technician said, "Huh." My eyebrows lifted as I tried to figure out what the concern was but she just went on working. Then came another, "Huh." This time she typed some notes into the computer. "What's wrong?" I asked a moment before my wife could get it out. "Nothings wrong," she said with a strange emphasis on the word wrong. I recognized this emphasis because it's the same one I would use when my wife asks if something she cooked was bad. "Not bad.....just not as good as usual." (I love her to death but she has truly butchered some meals.) After the ultrasound was over and she was getting an exam from the doctor we mentioned something about it. He shrugged it off as no big deal. This being our first pregnancy we didn't want to come off as worrying irrationally so we didn't push it any harder.

A few couple weeks later my wife's water broke. We still aren't sure what that was about. Perhaps it was nothing but can't help but feel guilty. Maybe if I pushed harder for answers or made them look harder this wouldn't have happened. I wanted to believe that there was nothing to worry about and now I don't have a baby. Maybe I should have worried. I hate that my fear of seeming irrational won over my fear of something going wrong over the pregnancy. Later we were told by another doctor that it would have been treated differently if it was a high risk pregnancy. High risk pregnancies would be ones where the mothers had health issues, drug abuse or two previous miscarriages. Why can't all pregnancies be treated as high risk? This was just another procedure to them but it was the world to me. That sounded to me like saying I don't lock my door because I haven't been robbed enough times. Perhaps if I had been the squeaky wheel I could have gotten us more care and they would have caught something.

I Feel Violent Today

I feel violent today. It's a side of myself that I hate. When I was in my early twenties I could go out to a bar and find myself in what I thought was the right side of a fight. That's a little tougher now that I'm in my thirties. Today I went in the back room at work and just started punching empty boxes. To be completely accurate all but one was empty. There was one that I just thought was empty. It turned out that there were glass bowls inside. My knuckles are still red. There aren't too many socially acceptable times to be violent. I'm still waiting for the random mugging by a guy with just a knife or to walk into a robbery in progress but so far no luck. It feels like I have a huge amount of rage to get out of my system. Deep down I know that it won't go away by punching but it's the only thing that seems to fit. I don't really want to hurt anyone. I really wish that I could hang my punching bag up in this apartment. We do have a garage so perhaps now that it's getting warmer I'll buy a stand.