“Life’s Been Good To Me”

 Apparently, it strikes people as odd when I say I’m a happy person, happily married, etc.  Maybe they expect that if one is *really* happy, he has to glow and crow about it all the time.  That’s just not my nature.  I kinda wish it were my nature, though.

I’m easily frustrated, and my Daddy (probably unwittingly) taught me well to have many, many pet peeves.  I listen to tone of voice, I watch facial expressions, I take it personally if someone I am speaking with doesn’t look at me.  So many SUBTLE things mean so much to me.  I wonder if Daddy was that sensitive to them.  I would not have thought so when I was a child.

From Daddy, I also inherited an "in your face, so kiss my ass" attitude, which does NOT mix well with the parts of Mama that are in me.  Mama has always been the gentle one.  I would like to act more like Mama; I just don’t know how, I guess.  I’m far grumpier, more easily frustrated, and a lot angrier than Mama is.

Why so angry?  I don’t honestly know.  I mean, like everyone, I have HAD reasons to be angry…and I mean deeply angry; lastingly angry.  But those reasons are dead now, so shouldn’t the anger be dead, too?  The damage done is not being done NOW…it’s all in the past, so why does it linger and cause such near-hatred inside me?

When I am very very angry at someone, I turn cold-hearted.  I WANT to see them suffer.  That’s a trait I HATE about myself, but I acknowledge that it exists.  Not only do I want to see them suffer, I want to MAKE them suffer, then suffer more, then suffer more, and suffer so badly they want to DIE.  But I won’t let them die.  That’s where I draw the line.

It’s hard being this fucked up.  I don’t know what to DO about it.  And, of course, with the county’s Medicaid being like it is, I can’t seem to get into (and STAY in) counseling.  I wonder if anyone really gets how psycho it can all make me feel sometimes.

I’m astounded by some things people say.  They say that I’m like such-and-such, and I’m speechless, stunned that they can even BEGIN to think that’s how I am, when it’s so opposite of me.  I guess my frustration, the by-product of which is a lot of griping and complaining, shows entirely the wrong picture.  It feels so pointless sometimes.  If 37 years have passed and STILL nobody knows "the real me", then how will anyone ever know?  I really wish I could decide I honestly don’t CARE if anyone knew…but I do care.  Couldn’t tell you why, though.

Thank God I have a family.  If I didn’t have my wife, our daughters, and our grandchildren, I might have actually given in and killed myself by now.  Maybe not.  I am a strong person.  Whiny, maybe, but strong.  If it doesn’t LITERALLY kill me, I’ll live.  I sometimes hate that trait about me, too.  I don’t always want to survive things, but here I go, living and living and living.  I’m trying to make the best of it.  

I think the worst part is that nobody seems to understand that it’s really not hard to please me.  All I want is to feel important, and I don’t feel it from adults.  That’s why my babies mean as much as they do.  They never hurt me.  Not a solid, unhealing wound.  That seems reserved for other adults; anyone whose birth I was nowhere near.

But as I said, I live and live and live, so I’ll just do that until I don’t do it anymore.