doubt

i think maybe the worst part of the flattening out of my emotional landscape is the doubt. as always, dear reader, i will bring it all back around, so just grab the metaphorical 'oh shit' handle and hold on for the ride. all hands inside the car at all times.

i have known little but anger, self-doubt and sadness for most of life. certainly those have been punctuated by moments of bright light, holes punched in the darkness, but those holes are like the stars viewed from the city - not so great in number, not so white in color, not so vibrant in their light as maybe they would be when viewed from another vantage point. the drugs help the sky from being so black, i suppose, but they cannot move me into the country where the stars are greater and brighter and myriad. i am still obscured by the city lights in which i live, and so while the darkness may not be as dark, the stars shine no brighter either. the drugs can't do that for me.

my sky has been so very dark, too. i had one of my great friends encourage me the other day my reminding me that many men, most men perhaps, have trouble with 'feeling'. it's all part of the mars/venus issue for men and women, yes? and i wish that had been as encouraging as it should have been, but i couldn't take the solace from it that anyone might have hoped, because i don't live in the mars/venus split world. my closest relationships have always been with girls and/or women. i have always found them easier to relate to (with a couple of highly notable exceptions, i suppose), and i believe that to be because we speak a similar language. it may not be that i speak the feminine language fluently or natively, but i certainly natively speak italian while women speak spanish - the words aren't identical, the pronunciations of the common ones may be off slightly, but the languages come from a common root and are so similar we can communicate. certainly i am not a native speaker of the male language. let's call it german, shall we? thus endeth that cumbersome metaphor. all i am trying to get at is that i am, by my nature, an emotional being. i am not some hyper-rational thinker who analytically selects his responses to the external stimulus. i react with my heart and my soul, the fundamental stuff of a human being is the part of me that rises up in anger or in sadness. i feel, and i feel deeply and fully. but i haven't figured out the positive side to that yet.

and now the circle closes. if i am that emotional being, if i have this bottomless well of feeling but cannot draw up a bucket of love for my family, what have i but doubt? this is the hardest part of it all. without that feeling, to me it feels less than real. if it does not feel real, i am left to wonder why i am here, what i am doing in this place with these people. i am prone to concern about my place in this world i have chosen, doubting that i am the best man to raise my children or care for my wife, doubting whether i was meant to take that left turn at albequerque that would have given them someone who could love them as they should be loved and not teach them the lessons i learned in smothering oneself. i doubt, and that doubt is what i have to work from right now. and that is the worst part.