**** I’ve held this post back for a couple of months. So, if you’re reading it on the day it was posted, don’t worry. This was a while ago.***
Today is one of the most frustrating days of my life. Nothing in particular happened. It just seems like nothing is working out. Things keep breaking, the car and the refrigerator most recently. Taxes were due this week. I got the joy of finding out I not only underpaid for 2014 and 2015, but I owe way more estimated tax for 2016 than I’ve been paying. I’ve had to dip into savings to write three big checks to the IRS. Gotta get rid of the accountant. Something is wrong with our internet store. I cannot figure it out. It’s an intermittent problem only reported by a handful of customers, but I can tell from overall sales, something else is going on. My web development company has been of no help. Yahoo, my hosting company, moved their support offshore to India. A call to Yahoo will only get me “Bill” in Mumbai, a guy who barely speaks English and who knows even less than I do. I’ve been trying to migrate from the Yahoo platform for over a year, but my web development company is dragging its feet. I’m interviewing marketing companies to try to get more traffic, but no one has really impressed me yet. Today, it has been a week since our interview on the radio. We gave out the contact information over and over during the interview. I was expecting just a few emails, maybe a handful. So far, the grand total is zero. Not one person. Zoe’s having an issue with her foot that we’ve taken her to the vet for twice and they can’t diagnose. I guess I need to take her back. And, we found out a few days ago that a good friend’s daughter has a form of cancer. Fortunately, it’s a very highly treatable form, but it’s cancer never-the-less and it looks like a couple of rough years ahead for her and the family. The principle of entropy seems to be at high tide in my life. Everything is tending toward chaos and all of my efforts to keep it from falling apart are failing.
As bedtime finally rolls around I’m looking forward to the escape of reading the book I’m reading right now. It’s the single most detailed account of the afterlife that I have read. At least it’s the most detailed account that resonates with me and I find believable. As I’m reading it, I just want to go there. It makes this place sound broken. There, things just work the way they are supposed to. You work, but you work for love, not money. No one gets sick. Maybe I shouldn’t be reading this book right now. The more I read it, the more I want to go and the less satisfied I am here.
I’m hoping my dreams take me to a place like this. As I’m trying to drift off to sleep, I don’t want simply to sleep, I want to leave. Sleep is a temporary fix. I’ll just wake up tomorrow and run through another list of things to try to make this better and end right back up here tomorrow night. Thoughts of climbing up onto the roof and throwing myself off come to me. But, our house is only two stories, there’s no easy way to get up there, and the fall probably wouldn’t kill me anyway.
After over an hour I finally drift off to sleep. Normally, I’m asleep within fifteen minutes, often in five. I dream of being in a gang. We’re like the Sons of Anarchy gang, but obviously not of the racist variety. Also, we’re not criminals. It’s just social. The dream is very long and very detailed. Part of what we do though is making pornography. I’m making a video today. My co-star is a beautiful woman, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I know her. We’ve dated a couple of times, but haven’t really hit it off. I am, of course, nervous about shooting this video. As we’re trying to get into it, she is giving me nothing. Her face, her body, there’s just no feedback. It’s as if she is just completely bored. I’m getting frustrated, but I know the cameras are rolling, so I keep going. Nothing. Now I’m bored and frustrated and just ready for this to be over. I keep trying. Finally, I just give up. The scene is a failure, but it’s not going to get any better.
After it’s over as we’re getting dressed I overhear her talking to one of the women on the set. According to her, it’s all my fault. I just don’t do the things for her that she needs from a man to get aroused. She hasn’t ever told me this or what she wanted or needs. She just doesn’t respond and then complains and blames me. I leave the set. Now you can add anger to the blame and frustration I’m feeling. Also, my family was there (for some reason). Aunts and Uncles and cousins… I’m embarrassed for having made this tape and even more embarrassed for the total failure that it turned out to be. I wake from the dream. Wow. What was that?
I keep thinking things have to get better. I just need to weather the storm. I’ve been listening to a meditation that encourages endurance. It tells me that this is all for my good. The storm cannot blow always. The wind and the rain are limited if not in capacity, at least in duration. When it’s over, I will be better for it. Every day I wake up and hope for a break in the clouds. It’s all I can do right now. I know I can outlast this. I will outlast this. But, it’s awfully frustrating in the middle of it when I know that my power to change anything is not just limited, it’s non-existent. None of my moves are working, the world is just as unresponsive as my co-star in that video.
