How To Get There

Tuesday was our third anniversary and she completely blew my mind. Some days ago she told me she bought a matching set of underwear from Target. I hadn't seen it yet, but she wore it to bed just for me. When she walked in the room she said her stomach felt really full from dinner. I figured that was her excuse not to fool around and I kept watching TV. Then she coyly said, "I guess I'll just take this off then," which forced me to reassess the situation. I pulled her onto the bed and we promptly gave each other oral sex. It was perfect, all I ever wanted for our sex life: seductive and surprising with equal participation.

The problem with sex is that it's never enough. Having sex just makes me want more sex. Just like not having sex makes me want more sex. But having her respect my wishes all of the sudden makes it hard not to respect her own. So each night since that I've woken up in the middle of the night hard, I've just let her sleep peacefully. And I've been bad every chance I get, looking at pornography and getting off. I've been incredibly turned on by it, more than ever, but now I've got something to lose. I shouldn't push my luck.

This week and last I've been doing as little as possible at work, just passing the time and waiting for 4 o'clock so I can go home. I've hardly been working on artwork, either. Sometimes my bad habits don't phase me, but this week my self esteem is pretty low. But I don't think I'm letting that on to anyone. I think I make it difficult for others to tell when I'm not content with myself. I'm very accustomed to hiding that and I'm always aware of the difference between the person inside my head and the person I show others.

As a creative person, I think I have a need to express the truth of who I am to others, but then it has never proven useful to tell family and friends if I'm down or depressed. There's nothing they can do but call more attention to the problem, and ultimately no one else can solve the problem but me. It's better if everyone treats me like everything is normal, then I can start to feel normal again, too. In the meantime, it's helpful to write the truth here.

All through my life, to different degrees, I've had a hard time believing in myself. It's strange. On one hand, I believe I am more intelligent and more creative than most people. Work and school always affirmed that for me, so I believe that I can do anything that I set my mind to. But on the other hand, I know that I am generally shy and that I lack perseverance. It's hard for me to stick to a single objective. I'll doubt myself and I am easily distracted. I feel like I know explicitly the things I need to do to meet my goals, but I cannot drive myself to do them. It's like I don't want myself to win.

And I don't ignore the facts that I did marry a smart and beautiful girl, I do have a decent job with a decent income, and I live where I want to live. But I feel no sense of glory in my life, or that I have lived up to my potential. I've spent a good portion of my life just wishing the time away and I still do it. I'm doing it right now.

Meanwhile my wife has scored a great new job. She'll make more money and get a company car. She won't have to go into an office. It may mean that we have to move to another Florida town, we don't know yet, but that doesn't bother me much. I only like my current job because it's tolerable, and like where we live because it's close to my family and close to the beach. I wouldn't want to stand in the way of her happiness, as long as it's not at the expense of my own.

I actually had a performance evaluation today in which my boss rated me as "high effective" in all areas pertaining to my job. But that is not a token of my good work habits as much as it is my ability to deceive others about who I am. In truth, I intermittently hate my job because it doesn't challenge me and eats up too much of my time, and hate myself for not working harder to ensure that I don't end up in a job like this.

With all of the problems and addictions others have, it seems overly apparent that people need ways to escape the pressure they feel in their lives. Some use cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, exercise. I just use pornography. And yet, all of the pressure I feel in my life comes solely from me. There is no pressure from my work, or from my friends or family to do things that I can't do. And it may sound strange, when I am only 30, but every day of my life I feel like I need to create something amazing that will give my life worth, because I may die at any time without having completed my purpose. Yet I'm not absolutely certain what that purpose is. It may be to become a successful artist. Or it may be just to create artwork that I myself can be proud of.

It's odd for me to even mention a purpose when I am an atheist. I know I was not "put here" to do anything in particular. But all of the social interactions I have had in my life have produced this expectation of me, just like I felt driven to find a woman I could marry. I think it's nothing more than conditioning, and if life on Earth has any real purpose it seems to be just promoting more life on Earth either by reproducing or getting eaten. So if all I ever do is die and get eaten by worms, I think I've served my purpose. But in my mind, I believe that meeting this other purpose of becoming an artist will be a great source of peace for me. It will restore my belief in myself, and make it easier to accomplish other things in my life. It will make me more confident and make me a better husband, and even one day, a better father.

Sometimes I think I know how to get there. I think I need to put as much time as I possibly can toward developing finished pieces of art in one cohesive style. But then it seems like every other aspect of my life is a strong current in the other direction, to devote time to many other agendas. And with the free time that I do have, I have to will myself to be creative, and fight the urge to seek instant gratification. So, in truth, I don't really know how to get there, because I've felt stuck in this situation for years. And I don't think time limitations would matter if I always believed in myself.