Obsession
Not just in the Fatal Attraction kind of way. What do you long for? What do you believe you need to make your life complete? Is there someone who you would love to just spend a minute, an hour, a lifetime with and that would make your life complete? What are you striving for in life?
My answer was perhaps one of the most difficult, revealing, and honest things I ever wrote:
obsession
"breath, echoing the sound
time starts slowing down
sink until I drown
I don't ever want to make it stop
and it keeps repeating
will you please complete me?
never be enough
to fill me up"
[Nine Inch Nails (Trent Reznor), "Please"]
I've thought long and hard about this one, or perhaps I should say I've tried, long and hard, to think about this one. The simple, obvious answer keeps storming out to the foreground. The answer that anyone who's read my journal regularly can undoubtedly see spelled out before them already. It sits there with this cat-that-ate-the-canary look on its face and it dares me to come up with something more clever. It dares me to waggle my finger in other directions. It dares me to deny and mislead, to conceal that a man as complex as I could ever be so incredibly foolish at heart, so simple, so infantile. I want to understand myself, that's the point of these pages, and yet I don't want to be so infantile, so simple, so foolish. I don't want to be so very transparent. Ever since I saw it posted on other pages earlier this month, I've tried to think of other things. I do have many obsessions... I have an "addictive personality"... but...
There are a lot of things in life that bring me pleasure, and most of them fairly simple things. And I pursue them. I obsess over them. I become addicted to them. For a time. And then, just like a new CD you've played to death and gotten sick of hearing, they get put away just as quickly as I'd adopted them and are only occasionally seen again.
I love playing D&D, for instance. I've played it since I was 9 years old. Almost two full decades now. And I've loved it. But I could give it up if I wanted.
I love computers and computer games. I work computers in the day and come home to eagerly sit in front of another at night. But I could give it up if I needed.
I love my journal. I love exposing my thoughts to the world. Whenever I have something to write I can't wait to read the finished page. But if I didn't find the time, I could just stop writing. I've considered it many times already.
And there's been crud (a fast paced game played on a snooker table)... there's been Everquest... there's Nine Inch Nails... some days I listen to the same NIN CD over and over and over and over and over... chess... Mah Jongg...
But it none of these things feel like I couldn't live without them. These things aren't on my mind every day when I awake, or every night when I drift off. These things do not sit there, lurking in my mind, somehow behind everything I do in some obscure way if I'm brave enough to dig deep and if I'm strong enough to admit it to myself.
And yes, there's my whole control issue. I've talked about that so many many times. There is the control issue. But...
And I know where it all began. She always "wore the pants" in my family. Even from her wheelchair, my mother ran our household. She did a damn fine job of it too. She kept it all together, when her body was falling apart. Life pushed down hard on her and she pushed back. She kicked the darkness till it bled daylight. She went down fighting. And she showed a spirit of determination so strong that it continues to motivate me to this day, and will for all my life.
But she was also demanding. She could be hard to please at times. And then there was that good dose of Catholic guilt that was injected into my child-mind. I felt like life owed her so much more... or like I owed her so much more. I wanted to be the shining point of light. I wanted to make it right. I wanted to be her little angel. Hell, I wanted to be the second coming of christ so I could heal her.
But I'm not going to sit here in a boo-hoo-victim-of-a-difficult-childhood pose. I don't know if I've ever met someone who hasn't had a difficult childhood in some way or other. You take your knocks and you grow up. In so very many ways, I had things quite well. I was always loved. I was always provided for. I was never abused. Besides, it only started there. Yes, I wanted her approval, and many times I got it, but then came the others.
Then there came every young girl or woman I was ever infatuated with from the time I was 13 onward. I don't need to have them. I don't need to love them. I don't need to enter into relationships with them all. I just need their "ok". That's it. I need them to see me, to get to know me, and to decide they like me. It's that simple really. And it's that hard. It's so incredibly fucking hard.
I started my written journal because I wanted to explore myself? I wanted to be around the girls in the coffee shop. I started my online journal because I wanted to express myself and get things off my chest? I've always hoped that some woman reading this would fall in love with me. I gritted my teeth, gulped down some Advil and sat through work yesterday because I was dying to see that movie with my female co-worker when I had no idea what it was about? Or because I saw the opportunity to make one more friend? No. I stuck it out because I needed this one more woman to like me. I fell asleep wondering what it would be like to have her head lying gently on my chest, and woke wondering what she'd say to the other girls over a coffee and how it might or might not help put me into their good graces too.
What do you long for? What do you believe you need to make your life complete?
I don't know that anything will ever leave me feeling truly satisfied. No matter how much approval I might meet with, I'd always meet someone new. I can never tire of them, because each one is new and unique. There is no "figuring" it all out. There is no end. There is no final understanding you can come to that can be applied in each case like some grand mathematic principle. They cannot be "conquered" somehow. It cannot be put to rest. It... will... never... end.
Is there someone who you would love to just spend a minute, an hour, a lifetime with and that would make your life complete?
I'd love to spend one minute with every female I've ever met.
I'd love to spend an hour with every girlfriend I've ever had.
And I'd love for my mother to be alive again and for the rest of my life.
I've thought at times there are women with whom my life might feel complete if only I could spend the rest of my existence with them... but it's not the truth. There is one whom I sometimes wonder about now, one with whom I wonder if I might like to spend the rest of my life... but even she would not make it complete. Because no matter how much she loved me, it would not be enough. It would bring me moments of happiness, but not a lifetime.
What are you striving for in life?
It wavers. It shifts and changes with the passing seasons. I'd like to design a role-playing game and see it converted into a computerized one. I'd like to write a book, or publish my journal as one. I'd like to teach again. I'd like to travel. I'd like to run my own company some day.
But for tomorrow, mostly I'd love to accidentally walk in on a conversation at work when it's just the girls and discover them talking about me in kind words. I want to hear one say "if I were single...". And I want them to giggle shyly and look embarrassed when they realize I'm there in the doorway.
And for the men who read this... you can think me foolish, noble, crazed, pathetic... it doesn't matter to me anyway.
And for the women... if you feel I'm "pathetic", please don't bother to break my heart by telling me. Don't even joke. And if you think me "sweet", you could feel free to pass it on but while I will undoubtedly smile and feel the most wonderful little warm feeling for just a second...*deep sigh*... try not to be too disappointed that it will... "never be enough to fill me up"
I wanted it to be something different.
I wanted it to be something grand.
Save the whales.
Feed the poor.
Found a new religion.
Run for election.
Cure cancer.
Or even just invent a better lightbulb.
I wanted it to be something impressive and noble.
But it's not.
